/: 


^ 


LIBRARY 


T  h  eo  1  ogical    Seminary, 

Vrinceton,    N.  J. 


S/ieJf 
Book 


Section.tj_.7r7. 

No, .; 


A      DONATION 


Beceived 


J 

v,0 


# 


THE 


STAR   OF  THE  WISE  MEN: 


A  COMMENTARY 


ON  THE  SECOND  CHAPTER  OF  ST.  MATTHEW. 


/ 
R1CHA.RD  CHENEVIX  TRENCH,  B.D., 

EXAMINING    CHAPLAIN    TO    THE    LORD    BISHOP    OF    OXFORD 

PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY,  KINg's  COLLEGE,  LONDON  } 

AND  LATE  HULSEAN  LECTURER. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

II.  HOOKER,-S.  W.  COR,  OF  EIGHTH  AND  CHESTNUT  STS. 
1850. 


WJVl.  S.  YOUNG,  PRINTER. 


STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN 


The  Birth  of  the  Lord  of  Giory  on  earth  had  its 
corresponding  sign  in  the  heavens.  The  natural  Umits 
of  an  essay  which  should  undertake  to  treat  of  that 
sign,  and  of  the  events  most  intimately  linked  with 
its  appearing,  are  those,  as  will  easily  be  perceived,  of 
the  second  chapter  of  St.  Matthew;  all  the  incidents  of 
which  hang  in  closest  connexion  on  the  coming  of  the 
Magi,  and  accomplish  themselves,  (with  the  inclusion, 
indeed,  according  to  one  arrangement,  of  the  presenta- 
tion in  the  temple,  Luke  ii.  22 — 38,)  in  a  perfect  and 
independent  cycle.  The  chapter  is  thus  singularly  com- 
plete in  itself,  finding  the  infant  Saviour  at  Bethlehem, 
and  leaving  him  at  Nazareth,  and  constituting,  if  we 
may  reverently  apply  the  word,  an  episode  in  the  life  of 
our  blessed  Lord. 

This  episode  it  is  my  purpose  to  consider,  and  to 
do  so  with  something  of  the  fulness  which  an  essay 
devoted  exclusively  to  it  would  alone  permit.     There 


4  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  1 . 

is  much  in  it,  besides  the  ease  with  which  it  detaches 
itself  from  the  context,  to  invite  to  this  its  sepa- 
rate treatment.  With  the  exception  of  the  histories  of 
the  passion  and  the  resurrection,  which,  it  is  evident, 
must  strike  yet  deeper  chords  in  the  hearts  of  the 
faithful,  being  facts  of  our  redemption  even  more 
central  still,  there  is  perhaps  no  passage  in  our  Lord's 
life,  which  has  laid  a  stronger  grasp,  or  set  a  deeper 
impress  on  the  mind,  and  heart,  and  imagination  of 
Christendom.  One  of  the  chief  festivals  of  the  church 
— the  Epiphany — has  here  its  motive;  and,  another, 
although  not  so  chief  a  one — that  of  the  Holy  Inno- 
cents— roots  itself  in  the  events  recorded  here.  What 
a  witness  have  we  for  its  hold  on  the  popular  affections 
and  imagination  in  the  vast  body  of  legendary  lore 
which  has  clustered  round  it;  in  the  innumerable 
medieval  mysteries  which  turn  on  the  flight  into 
Egypt,  the  massacre  of  the  Innocents,  or  the  coming 
of  the  three  kings ;  and  in  all  else  of  poetry  and  paint- 
ing which  has  found  its  suggestion  here.  And  this 
deep  and  manifold  interest  and  delight  in  this  portion 
of  Holy  Scripture  which  others  have  felt,  has  very 
probably  been  sufficiently  explained  to  each  one  of  us, 
by  the  manner  in  which  we  ourselves  have  recurred  to 
it  again  and  again,  with  an  interest  ever  new,  with  a 
wonder  ever  growing,  as  we  have  more  and  more  per- 
ceived how  deep  the  mysteries  of  our  faith  which  are 
here,  in  simplest  historic  guise,  presented  to  us. 

Nor  may  I  omit,  as  a  further  inducement  which  I 
found  to  this  making  of  it  the  subject  of  a  separate 
treatment,  the  fact  that  the  difficulties  which  it  presents 


MATT.  II.  1.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  5 

are  neither  few  nor  inconsiderable.  There  are  difficul- 
ties in  its  chronology ;  in  the  harmonizing  of  this  por- 
tion of  sacred  history  with  the  history  of  the  same,  or 
nearly  the  same  period,  as  given  in  St.  Luke;  in  the 
use  and  application  of  Old  Testament  prophecies;  in  the 
language  under  which  natural  phenomena  are  spoken 
of;  and  perhaps  in  some  other  matters,  although  these 
are  certainly  the  chief.  But  while  it  must  freel}'  be 
allowed  that  there  are  such,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  I 
have  been  as  far  as  possible  from  desiring  to  give  an 
apologetic  character  to  this  essay.  There  is  so  great  a 
reverence  owing  to  the  truth  of  God, — a  reverence 
which  should  make  us  reluctant,  without  extremest  ne- 
cessity, to  a  putting  it  on  the  defensive, — the  language 
of  apology  is  one  fraught  with  so  many  perils,  there  is 
so  great  a  danger  lest  many  of  our  readers  may  first 
learn  from  our  defence  that  what  we  defend  has  ever 
been  assailed,  and  lest,  seeking  to  confirm  the  faith  of 
others,  we  may  indeed  give  a  shock  to  theirs,  that 
by  no  Christian  writer  should  this  language  be  lightly 
or  needlessly  adopted.  Something  of  such  a  tone  a 
treatise  must  occasionally  possess,  which  has  to  do 
with  a  portion  of  Holy  Scripture  that  eminently  has 
been,  and  perhaps  shall  be  yet  more,  like  that  Lord, 
the  dignities  and  dangers  of  whose  infancy  it  records, 
"  a  sign  spoken  against."  Yet  I  have  earnestly  desired 
that,  in  this  respect,  I  should,  at  any  rate,  not  run  before 
the  needs  of  my  readers. 

The  impression  which  the  opening  words  of  this 
chapter,  ^'Now  when  Jesus  was  born,^^  leave  on  us,  as 
we  read  them  in  the  original,  (and  the  impression  is 


6  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  1. 

retained  in  our  English  translation,)  certainly  is,  that 
the  visit  of  the  wise  men,  which  the  Evangelist  is  about 
to  record,  found  place  very  shortly  after  the  birth  of 
Christ,  and  that  it  is  St.  Matthew's  intention  to  place 
the  two  events  in  this  nearest  relation  of  time.  The 
words  do  not  absolutely  compel  us  to  accept  such 
a  conclusion,  if  there  were  prevailing  arguments  on  the 
other  side,  or  if  the  embarrassments  \yere  too  great 
which  would  follow  on  the  reception  of  this  view  of  the 
matter;  but  they  certainly  strongly  suggest  that  it  was 
so.  With  only  this  observation  for  the  present,  the 
question  of  the  chronology  of  the  whole  chapter  may  be 
reserved  for  a  later  and  a  single  discussion,  and  the 
more  natural  time  for  this  will  be  when  we  reach  the 
flight  into  Egypt,  for  then  all  will  lie  before  us  which 
has  in  this  respect  to  be  arranged. 

Exactly  from  what  region  these  wise  men  came, 
whose  homage  signalized  the  Saviour's  birth,  we  are 
not  told.  The  question  has  been  often  debated,  but  the 
language  of  the  Evangelist — ^'•wise  men  from  the  east,^^^ 
— is  too   indefinite,  and   perhaps   intentionalFy  too  in- 

*  The  avctroKtit,  with  'jj^/ov,  either  understood,  as  here,  or  expressed, 
as  Rev.  xvi.  12,  and  continually  with,  and  without,  it  in  the  LXX.,  as 
Josh.  xii.  1 — 3,  has  the  Su(rf/.at  for  its  complement,  Matt.  viii.  11 ;  Luke 
xiii.  29.  Olshausen's  6v<r/u,oq  nowhere  occurs.  The  words  rest  on  the 
same  thought  as  our  Orient  and  Occident,  as  the  Morgen  and  Abend- 
land  of  the  Germans.  If,  indeed,  "east"  is  derived,  as  some  suggest, 
from  the  Gothic,  ust-an,  surgere,  it  too  contains  the  same  allusion. 
Both  words,  when  used  in  this  sense,  appear  almost  always  in  the 
plural ;  of  which  the  most  probable  explanation  lies  in  the  fact,  that 
men  contemplated  these  quarters  as  those  of  the  continually  recurring 
sunrises  and  sunsets. 


MATT.  II.  1.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  7 

definite  to  justify  any  decision.  Chrysostom,  with  most 
others,  either  affirm,  or  seem  always  to  take  for  granted, 
that  it  was  Persia;  no  doubt  because  Persia  was  the 
natural  home  and  haunt  of  the  Magian  religion.  Yet 
others  have  multiplied  many  arguments  in  favour  of 
Arabia,  as,  for  instance,  its  greater  nearness — a  consi- 
deration which  would  have  its  weight  with  those 
who  believed  that  the  star  did  not  precede,  but  accom- 
panied, the  Lord's  birth,  and  that  this  visit  of  theirs 
was  on  the  twelfth  day  after  the  Nativity,  since  they 
could  scarcely  have  arrived  from  any  region  very 
remote.  They  have  farther  urged,  that  the  offered  gifts 
were  eminently,  and  one  of  them,  (the  frankincense,) 
exclusively,  the  product  of  that  land;  (Ezek.  xxvii.,2;) 
that  the  word  of  prophecy  had  expressly  designated 
"  kings  of  Arabia  and  Sheba,"  as  those  that  should 
bring  their  gifts,  and  had  named  two  of  these  very  gifts, 
to  the  King  and  the  King's  Son.^  (Ps.  Ixxii.  10,  15; 
Isa.  Ix.  6.) 

But  although  ^^from  the  EasV^  must  be  left  in  its 
indefiniteness,  yet  the  ^^wise  men^^  themselves  are  not 
so  vaguely  designated  in  the  original  as  by  this  appella- 
tion in  our  Version ;  one  which  yet  is  not  to  be  found 

'  This  is  the  view  taken  by  Justin  Martyr,  (o/  auo  'Aqx0ia;  juayoi,) 
by  TertuUian,  Con.  Marcion.,  1.  3,  c  13,  who  speaking  of  Arabia: 
Cujus  tunc  virtutem  Christus  accepit,  accipiendo  insignia  ejus,  aurum 
et  odores;  by  Grotius;  and  others.  But  Arabia  is  rather  to  the  south 
than  the  east,  of  Judea;  so  that  the  queen  of  Sheba  is,  on  our  Lord's 
lips,  "the  queen  of  the  south."  (Matt.  xii.  42.)  Pliny,  too,  (H.N. 
xii.  30,)  and  others  were  certainly  in  error,  making  the  frankincense  to 
be  exclusively  the  product  of  Arabia. 


8  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  1. 

fault  witli,  as  it  would  not  have  been  easy,  if  possible, 
to  substitute  a  better  word  in  its  stead.  They  are 
Magi.  Of  these,  (that  is,  of  the  Magi  proper,)  the  ear- 
liest mention  is  in  Herodotus.  They  were,  as  from 
him  we  learn,  a  tribe  of  the  Medes,  uniting,  as  the 
Levites  among  the  Jews,  and  the  Chaldaeans  among 
the  Assyrians,  a  common  family  descent,  and  the  exclu- 
sive possession  of  all  sacerdotal  and  ecclesiastical  func- 
tions— a  priest-caste.*  As  such,  they  were  the  sole 
possessors  of  all  science  and  knowledge,  and  not  merely 
exercised  most  decisive  influence  in  all  private  matters, 
as  prophets,  as  interpreters  of  dreams,  but  in  political 
affairs  as  well.  The  education  of  the  king  was  in  their 
hands  ;  they  filled  his  court,  composed  his  council ;  and 
although  they  had  not  the  government  so  directly  in 
their  hands  as  the  Egyptian  hierarchy,  yet  they  exer- 
cised the  strongest  influence  thereon.  In  all  liturgic 
matters  they  were  supreme ;  they  interpreted  the  holy 
books,  and,  which  brings  them  into  more  immediate 
relation  with  the  matter  directly  in  hand,  they  observed 
the  stars,  and  read  in  them  the  future  destinies  of  men. 
The  nameMagian,  then,  in  this  its  firstsense,  was  aname 
of  highest  dignity  and  honour. 

But  as  it  travelled  westward,  as  it  detached  itself 
more  and  more  from  its  original  birth-place  and  its 
naiive  soil,  as  it  came  to  be  applied,  not  to  the  members 


*  There  is,  I  believe,  no  doubt  concerning  the  derivation  of  the  name, 
that  it  is  from  mag  or  mo^-^priest,  in  the  old  Pehlevi.  (8ee  Hyde,  De 
Rel.  Vet.  Pers.,  p.  377,  and  Creuzer,  Symbolik,  v.  i.  p.  187.)  This  is 
the  consenting  statement  of  Porphyry,  Apuleius,  and  all  the  ancients. 


MATT.  II.  1.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  9 

of  this  sacerdotal  Median  caste,  but  in  a  secondary 
sense  to  all  those  who,  like  them,  cultivated  secret  and 
mysterious  arts,  read  the  heavens,  and  calculated  nati- 
vities,* it  gradually  ceased  to  be  this  title  of  honour 
which  once  it  had  been;  and,  though   still   remaining 

irmore  or  less  such,  when  applied  to  those  who  bore  it 
^ ,  first,  gre,w  to  have  quite  another  meaning  attached  to  it, 

■""vVhen  used  about  others.^  It  followed  here  the  fortune 
of  so  many  other  words  in  all  languages,  which  having 
had  at  first  a  nobler  signification,  came  afterwards  to 
be  used  in  a  worse^ — that  is,  the  thing  deteriorated, 
and  drew  after  it  of  necessity  a  degradation  of  the 
word  which  represented  it.  Thus  was  it  in  the  present 
instance.  We  can  indeed  easily  understand  that 
nowhere  would  such  a  degeneracy  and  deterioration  lie 
nearer  than  in  these  arts.  How  quickly,  and  yet  by 
what  imperceptible  degrees,  would  they  slip  over  into 


*  By  the  same  law  and  progress  of  thought,  Canaanite,  in  more 
places  than  one  in  Scripture  (Job  xli.  6;  Frov.  xxxi.  24)  has  quite  lost 
its  gentile  signification,  and  is  merely  equivalent  to  "merchant,"  being 
so  translated  in  our  Version.  We  know,  too,  how  at  Rome  all  astro- 
logers were  called  Chaldseans. 

*  Thus  Jerome  (in  Dan.  ii.:)  Consuetudo  et  sermo  communis  magos 
pro  maleficis  accipit;  qui  aliter  habentur  apud  gentem  suam,  eo  quod 
sint  philosophi  Chaldaeorum ;  et  ad  artis  hujus  scientiam  reges  quoque 
et  principes  ejusdem  gentis  omnia  faciunt. 

^  Thus  rvqavvoq,  <ro(fiiTTTig,  mathematicus,  latro,  brigand,  Pfafie, 
villain.  One  example  for  many  of  the  word  in  its  more  dishonourable 
use  the  CEdipus  Tyraimus  supplies.  The  king  addresses  Teiresias  the 
prophet,  whom  he  suspects  Creon  to  have  suborned  with  money,  as — 

/Liayov  .  .  .  /urj/avoppa'^oVf  AoXlov  etyvgrtjv: 
where  Ellendt,  on  the  word  *c«>cv,  observes,  Convicii  instar  est. 


10  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  1. 

fraud,  trickery,  and  imposture,  especially  when  they 
ceased  to  be  exercised  by  a  responsible  guide,  but  by 
every  man  upon  his  own  account. 

Seeing  that  the  word  "  Magian"  is  thus  a  middle  term, 
and  of  twofold  use,'  the  question  has  often  presented 

'  The  wish  which  has  been  sometimes  expressed,  that  our  translators 
had  rendered  throughout  the  same  Greek  word  by  the  same  EngHsh, 
(and  of  course,  where  practicable,  words  different  in  the  original  by 
different  in  the  translation,)  is  shown,  by  the  single  example  of  this 
word,  to  be  one  with  which  it  would  have  been  impossible  entirely  to 
comply.  Doubtless,  if  their  attention  had  been  more  directed  to  this 
point,  they  might  have  done,  and  it  would  have  been  to  advantage  in 
many  ways  if  they  had  done,  more  in  this  respect  than  actually  tliey 
have.  In  the  occasional  needless,  and  sometimes  in  their  degree  inju- 
rious, inconsistencies,  which  it  would  be  idle  to  deny,  we  have  probably 
a  consequence  of  the  many  minds  and  pens  that  were  engaged  in  the 
translation ;  though  in  the  minute  details  it  is  difficult  enough  for  even 
the  same  person  to  be  always  consistent  with  himself;  otherwise  we 
should  scarcely  have  had  Timothy  and  Timotheus,  an  English  and  a 
Latin  form  in  one  and  the  same  chapter.  (2  Cor.  i.  1,  19.)  But 
acknowledging,  as  we  must,  such  perfect  consistency  not  to  be  very 
easy  of  attainment,  we  may  yet  express  our  regret  that  distinctions  such 
as  certainly  exist, — for  example,  between  <p^ovif4.og  and  s-oq>og,  KMVTy^Q 
and  \tja-Ttjg,  a-tj/jcuov  and  rsga?,  and  which  might  have  been  so  easily 
preserved,  should  yet  have  been  in  great  part  obliterated  for  the  English 
reader,  as  any  one  following  up  the  matter  with  a  Greek  and  an  English 
Concordance  will  find  that  they  have.  At  the  same  time,  this  rule  of 
rendering  the  same  word  by  tlie  same  cannot  be  of  universal  observance ; 
inasmuch  as  oftentimes  a  word  in  one  language  will  cover  a  much  lar- 
ger space,  will  fill  a  far  wider  sphere  of  meaning,  than  any  of  its  partial 
equivalents  in  another.  Thus,  as  Freund  asks,  what  one  German, 
and  we  may  equally  say,  what  one  English,  word  would  embrace  all 
the  uses  of  the  Latin  cano9  Or  a  word  in  one  language  may  have  a 
duplicity  of  meaning,  which  no  equivalent  in  another  possesses;  may 
be  able  rapidly  to  change  its  front,  to  present  itself  now  in  a  good  sense, 


MATT.  II.  1.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  11 

itself;  In  which  sense  does  St.  Matthew  use  it?  Is 
the  title  given  to  these  visiters  of  the  cradle  of  the 
infant  Lord  in  its  first  and  more  honourable,  or  in  its 
second  and  ignobler,  sense.  Calling  them  Magi,  does 
the  Evangelist  mean  to  urge  their  wisdom,  or  their 
magic  ?  and  is  their  coming  a  testimony  and  a  foretaste 
of  the  manner  in  which  all  the  highest  wisdom  of  this 
world  comes  and  does  homage  to  Him,  "  who  of  God  is 
made  unto  us  wisdom,"  "in  whom  are  hidden  all  trea- 
sures of  wisdom  or  knowledge  ?"  or  is  it  a  renouncing 
of  wicked  arts  in  the  person  of  the  chief  adepts  thereof, 
a  parallel  to  that  later  burning  of  their  magical  books 
on  the  part  of  the  Ephesian  converts,  (Acts  xix.  19,) 
a  manifest  token  of  the  dissolution  of  all  sorceries  and 
charms  before  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel;  and,  more 
generally,  a  preluding  to  the  calling  of  great  sinners, 
the  Matthews,  the  Zacchaeuses,  and  the  like,  to  the  know- 
ledge of  Christ  ? 

In  this  last  sense  it  has  been  understood  by  many  ;^ 

now  in  a  bad,  as  none  in  another  language  can  do.  Tliis  is  the  case  in 
the  present  instance;  and,  being  so,  there  was  no  choice  but  to  render 
yitayof  here  and  at  Acts  xiii.  6,  8,  by  different  words.  Any  word  which 
would  have  been  appropriate  here,  would  have  been  inappropriate  there, 
and  vice  versa. 

*  Thus  Ignatius  (ad  Ephes.,  c.  19)  speaks  of  that  Star  as  one  o&tv 
ilviTO  TCi-a-a  fjia-yiia  xai  vag  Sscr/^ioc  r]<paviLsro  xax/*?,  x.  t.  X.Cf.Ter- 
tuUian,  De  Idololat.,  c.  9;  Hilary,  De  Trin.,  1.  4,  §  38;  and  Origen, 
Con.  Cels.,  1.  1,  c.  60,  who  supposes  that  they  guessed,  from  the  failing 
of  their  spells,  that  a  mightier  than  the  evil  spirits  whom  they  served 
was  born.  And  Augustine,  in  a  sermon  for  Epiphany,  (Serm.  200:) 
Manifestatus  est  [Dominus]  in  ipsis  cunabulis  infantise  suae  his  qui 
prope,  et  his  qui  longe,  erant;  Judaeis  in  pastorum  propinquitate,  genti- 


12  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  1. 

and  they  can  urge  that,  so  far  as  New  Testament 
usage  may  have  weight,  wherever  else  it  or  its  deriva- 
tives are  there  used,  they  are  used  only  in  a  bad  sense, 
and  to  express  sorcerers  and  sorceries.  (Acts  viii.  9,11; 
xiii.  6,  8.)  Yet,  considering  the  tendencies  of  this 
part  of  St.  Matthew's  narrative,  and  that  he  records 
this  advent  of  theirs  evidently  as  one  of  the  gleams  of 
glory  which  gild  the  lowly  cradle  of  the  new-born  King;^ 
seeing,  too,  that  they  are  expressly  called  wise  men 
"/rowi  the  east,^''  such  as,  in  other  words,  belonged  to 


bus  in  magorum  longinquitate.  Illi  ipso  die  quo  natus  est,  isti  ad  eum 
hodie  advenisse  creduntur:  manifestatus  ergo  est  nee  illis  doctis,  nee 
istis  justis.  PrsBvalet  namque  imperitia  in  rusticitate  pastoram,  et  im- 
pietas  in  sacrilegiis  magorum.  Utrosque  sibi  lapis  angularis  applicuit, 
quippe  qui  venit  stulta  miindi  eligere  ut  confunderent  sapientes,  et  non 
vocare  justos  sed  peccatores,  ut  nuUus  magnus  superbiret,  nuUus  infi- 
mus  desperaret.  Such,  too,  was  a  common  view  in  the  middle  ages. 
Thus  Abelard  (in  Epiph.  Dom.,  Sterm.  4  :)  Bene  magi  primitise  genti- 
um ad  fidem  primo  tracti  fuerunt,  ut  qui  maxime  erroris  tenuerant  ma- 
gisterium,  ipsi  post  modum  etiam  suce  conversionis  exemplo  fidei  face- 
rent  documentum.  .  .  .  Quis  enim  magos  intantum  detestandos  esse 
ignoret,  ut  non  solum  ipsos,  sed  etiam  quemlibetad  eos  declinantem,Iex 
interfici  jubeati  Aquinas  in  like  maimer  (Sum  Theol.,  parsS*,  qu.  36, 
art.  3:)  Manifestatus  est  justis,  Simeoni  et  Annse;  et  peccatoribus, 
scilicet  magis.  Crashaw's  fine  hymn  on  the  Epiphany  rests  throughout 
on  this  supposition. 

'  Bengel  says  very  beautifully,  on  the  angelic  annunciation  of  the 
Saviour's  birth,  (Luke  ii.  9,)  and  the  remark  holds  good  also  here, 
though  there  it  has  a  yet  greater  fitness :  "  In  onmi  humiliatione  Christi, 
per  decoram  quandam  protestationem  cautum  est  gloriae  ejus  divinae. 
Hoc  loco,  per  praeconium  angeli ;  in  circumcisione,  per  nomen  Jesu; 
in  purificatione,  per  testimonium  Simeonis ;  in  baptismo,  per  exceptio- 
nem  Baptist®;  in  passione, modis  longe  plurimis."  He  might  have 
added  Matt.  xvii.  27. 


MATT.  II.  1.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  13 

the  original  and  nobler  stock  of  the  Magi,  and  not  to 
the  later  and  degenerate  off-sets,  I  cannot  doubt  that 
the  other  is  a  truer  view  of  his  intention  in  giving  to 
these  visiters  exactly  this  appellation  which  he  does. 
" A  greater  than  Solomon"  was  here;  and  these  come, 
not,  indeed,  "  to  hear  his  wisdom,"  as  other  ambassa- 
dors of  the  heathen  world  had  come  to  hear  the  wisdom 
of  Solomon,  (1  Kin.  x.  2,  3,  24 ;  2  Chron.  ix.  23  ;)  not 
this,  for  He,  the  Word,  lay  as  yet  without  a  word  on  his 
mother's  breast ;  but  still  to  acknowledge  that  He  was 
the  very  wisdom  of  God.  St.  Matthew  would  set  forth 
to  us  in  them  the  highest  human  wisdom  doing  homage 
to  the  wisdom  of  God ;  refusing  to  walk  in  sparks  of 
its  own  kindling,  when  in  his  light  it  could  see  light; 
but  not  so  far  as  this  word  goes,  confessing  its  own 
perversity,  nor  any  forbidden  ways  in  which  it  had 
been  hitherto  walking;  and  our  translators  have  done 
wisely  and  well,  as  South  remarks,  in  the  word  which 
they  have  selected,  and  in  abstaining  from  using  in  this 
place  any  term  which  would  have  involved  reproach. 
They,  indeed,  did  but  follow  in  this  the  earlier  English 
versions,  Tyndal,  Cranmer,  and  the  Geneva,  which 
equally  have  ^^wise  men;^''  (the  Rhemish  has  "sages;") 
though  at  Acts  xiii.  6,  8,  our  version  has  rightly  trans- 
lated the  same  word  by  "  sorcerer."^ 

1  The  word  occurs  four  times  in  Theodotion's  version  of  Daniel,  (i. 
20  ;  ii.  2,  27;  iv.  4,)  and  certainly  with  no  dishonourable  meaning  at- 
tached to  it.  Comparing  Dan.  iv.  4  with  the  preceding  verse,  we  see 
that  the  ^ayoi  (=D^£)tt'N)  were  one  division  of  the  vo<poi.  It  is  used 
by  Aquila  (I  Sam.  xxviii.  8,  9 ;  Isai.  xxix.  4)  as  =nniN;  and  by  Sym- 
machus  (Gen.  xli.  8,)  as  =  Q^ntJin  =  iefc,ypuf/./uATtn» 


14  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  1. 

The  wise  men,  tlien,  were  not  the  professors  of  an 
evil  magic :  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  as  little 
ground  to  account  them  kings,  as  the  Romish  church 
has  made  it  almost  an  article  of  faith  that  they  were. 
Maldonatus,  who  shows  often  a  hardly  suppressed 
contempt  for  the  untenable  traditions  of  his  own 
church,  yet  here  storms  against  some  heretical  inter- 
preters, who  refused  them  this  dignity;  although  he 
himself  ends  with  confessing  that  it  is  only  a  probable 
opinion,  and  that  by  kings  he  means,  not  so  much 
rulers  of  empires  as  sheiks  or  emirs,  reguli,  and  not 
reges.  Doubtless  at  a  very  early  date  it  began  to  be 
usual  to  attribute  to  them  these  royal  honours.  The 
passages  that  mainly  contributed  thereto,  and  that 
served  as  the  chief  support  for  this  opinion,  were 
Isai.  Ix.  3:  "And  the  Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light, 
and  kings  to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising,"  in  combi- 
nation with  Ps.  Ixxii.  10,  11:  "The  kings  of  Tar- 
shish  and  of  the  isles  shall  bring  presents ;  the  kings  of 
Sheba  and  Seba  shall  offer  gifts.  Yea,  all  kings  shall 
fall  down  before  Him;  all  nations  shall  serve  Him." 
Thus  Tertullian  twice  quotes  this  last  passage,  as 
having  its  perfect  fulfilment  in  the  adoration  of  Christ 
by  these  wise  men  from  the  east;*  while  Hilary 2  also 

^  Adv.  Jud.,  c.  9;  Con:  Marcion.,  1.  3,  c.  13  ;  with  this  explanation: 
Nam  et  magos  reges  fere  habuit  Oriens. 

°  De  Trin.,  1.  4,  §  38.  Another  Scripture  of  which  he  makes  in- 
genious adaptation  to  this  coming  of  the  Magi,  and  which  he  finds  ful- 
filled therein,  is  Isai.  xlv.  14.  "The  labour  of  Egypt"  is  the  idolatry 
which  they  renounced ;  "  the  merchandise  of  Ethiopia  and  the  Sabae- 
ans,"  the  gifts  which  they  offered. 


MATT.  II.  1.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  15 

calls  them  princes,  and  quotes  this  last  passage,  without 
apparently  any  doubt  that  it,  as  so  many  more,  found 
now  its  fulfilment.  It  needs  not  to  observe  how  uni- 
versally this  belief  prevailed  in  the  middle  ages,  so  that 
it  gave  to  Epiphany  one  of  the  titles  by  which  it  was 
most  commonly  designated,  namely,  the  Feast  of  the 
Three  Kings, — nor  how  Christian  art,  poetry  and  paint- 
ing alike,  were,  and  in  part  are  still,  penetrated  with 
it, — nor  yet  how  innumerable  are  the  legends  which  turn 
on  the  kingly  dignity  of  these  august  visiters.^ 

But  not  only  was  it  made  almost  into  an  article  of 
faith  that  they  were  kings,  but  also  their  number, 
about  which  St.  Matthew  is  silent,  was  determined. 
In  the  Eastern  Church,  indeed,  though  chiefly  among 
the  Nestorians,  they  were  sometimes  said  to  be  twelve; 
but  three  was  far  more  predominantly  esteemed  their 
number.  By  and  by  their  very  names  were  known 
— Melchior,  Caspar,  and  Balthazar;'^  I  believe  Bede 
is  the  first  who  acquaints  us  with  these ;  and  they  were 
considered  severally  to  represent  the  three  groups  of 
mankind;  Melchior  representing  the  family  of  Shem, 


*■  Festum  trium  regum,  principum,  dynastarum ;  so  in  the  Christian 
hymn: 

Reges  de  Saba  veniunt, 
Aurum,  thus,  niyrrham  offerunt  : 
And  again : 

Natus  est  Rex  glorias. 
Ad  quern  reges  ambulabant, 

Aurum,  myrrham,  thus  portabant  ^ 

*  Yet  these  are  not  the  only  names  they  have  borne ;  for  others"see 
Ilebenstreit,  De  Magorum  Nomine,  Patria,  et  Statu  Dissert.,  Jenae, 
1709. 


16  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  1, 

Caspar  of  Ham,  (generally,  therefore,  portrayed,  in 
Christian  art,  with  the  dark  hues  of  a  Moor  or  Ethio- 
pian,) and  Balthazar  of  Japhet.  I  think  it  probable 
that  this  contemplating  of  them  as  representatives  of  the 
three  races  was  rather  an  after-thought;  and  the  more 
immediate  inducement  to  the  counting  them  three,  lay  in 
the  threefold  gifts  which  they  offered.* 

The  relation  is  a  very  interesting  one  in  which  these 
Magi  of  St.  Matthew  stand  to  the  shepherds  of  St. 
Luke,  (ii.  8 — 18.)  They  may  in  many  aspects  be  co- 
ordinated with  one  another ;  for  if  those  shepherds  are 
the  first  fruits  of  the  Jewish  nation  doing  homage  to 
their  own  King,  exactly  so  are  these  wise  men  the  first 
fruits  of  the  heathen  world^  doing  homage  to  that 
King,  who,  in  that  He  was  ^^King  of  the  Jews^''  was  also 
their  King  and  the  King  of  all.  Their  coming,  and  that 
of  the  shepherds,  to  the  same  point,  and  to  the  same  pre- 
sence, was  the  prophecy,  with,  indeed,  its  commencing 
fulfilment,  of  Gentile  and  Jew,  of  them  who  were  far 
off  and  them  who  were  near,  that  should  meet  in  Christ, 
as  in  the  one  corner-stone  ;  in  whom  both  were  one,  in 
whom  they  should  lay  aside  their  oppositions  and  en- 
mities, and  be  knit  as  into  a  single  body  and  building. 
Here  was  already  the  pledge  of  the  mystery  whereof  the 


'  So  Leo  the  Great,  de  Epiph.,  Serm.  1 .  4 — 7;  and  Abelard  (Serm. 
in  Epiph.,  p.  771 :)  Quot  vero  isti  magi  flierint,  ex  numero  trince  obla- 
tionis  tres  eos  fuisse  multi  suspicantur. 

2  Aquinag  (Summ.  Theol.,  iii.  36,  8:)  In  magis  apparuit  sicut  in 
quodam  praesagio  fides  et  devotio  gentium  vcnientium  a  remotis  ad 
Christum. 


MATT.  II.  1.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  17 

apostle  of  the  Gentiles  afterwards   more    fully  spoke. 
(Ephes.  ii.  17.^) 

Nor  is  it  uninstructive  to  compare  the  guidance  by 
which  they  and  the  shepherds,  respectively,  are  brought 
to  the  presence  of  the  new-born  King.  The  shepherds, 
as  of  Jewish  extraction,  are  guided  by  an  angel ;  but 
the  wise  men,  as  Gentiles,  by  a  star — those  by  revela- 
tion, which  was  familiar  to  them  ;  these  by  nature,  with 
the  aspects  of  which  they  were  familiar;  but  thus,  whe- 
ther by  an  angel  or  a  star,  in  either  case  the  words  of 
the  Psalmist  were  fulfilled,  and  "/Ae  heavens  declared 
the  glory  of  God."^     There  was  a  fitness,  too,  in  the 

*  A  fanciful  application  was  often  made  in  the  early  Church  of  the 
prophecy  of  Isai.  i.  3.  The  Jew  and  Gentile  who  recognised  the  dignity 
of  the  occupant  of  that  manger,  were  severally  the  ox  and  the  ass,  that 
know  their  owner  and  their  master's  crib.  Thus  Augustine  (Serm, 
375  :)  In  eis  coepit  bos  agnoscere  possessorem  suum,  et  asinus  praesepe 
domini  sui  .  .  .  Bos  de«Judaeis,  asinus  de  genlibus:  ambo  ad  unum 
praesepe  venerunt,  et  verbi  cibaria  invenerunt.  So,  too,  the  words  of 
the  Christmas  hymn, 

Cognovit  bos  et  asinus 

Quod  puer  erat  Dominus, 
make  probably  allusion  to  this,  as  well  as  to  the  legend  that  the  dumb 
animals  did  obeisance  to,  and  after  their  fashion  worshipped,  the  infant 
Lord. 

=*  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  10  in  Evang.;)  Quaerendura  nobis  est, 
quidnam  sit  quod,  Redemptore  nato,  pastoribus  in  Judae^  angelus  ap> 
paruit,  et  ad  adorandum  hunc  ab  oriente  magos  non  angelus  sed  stella  per- 
duxit?  Quia  videlicet  Judaeis  tanquam  ratione  utentibus,  rationale 
animal,  id  est  angelus,  praedicare  debuit:  Gentiles  vero,  quia  uti  ratione 
nesciebant,  ad  cognoscendum  Dominum  non  per  vocem,  sed  per  signa 
perducuntur.  Unde  etiam  per  Paulum  dicihir:  Prophetise  fidelibus 
pjiitte  sunt,  non  infidelibiis ;  signa  autem  infidelibus,  non  fidelibus. 


18  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  1. 

fact  of  the  shepherds,  who  were  the  representatives  of 
the  Jews,  of  them  therefore  that  were  near,  making 
their  appearance  on  the  very  day  of  the  Nativity,  while 
the  wise  men,  who,  like  the  whole  Gentile  world,  came 
from  afar,  certainly  did  not  appear  till  a  much  later  day 
•—how  much  later  we  may  presently  inquire.^ 

Nor  should  we  fail  to  observe,  that  wliile  there 
would  have  been  a  certain  fitness  in  the  use  of  any 
natural  helps,  whereby  to  beckon  and  invite  these 
children  of  nature  into  the  kingdom  of  grace,  yet  was 
there  an  especial  fitness  in  this  one  which  it  pleased 
God  to  use  ;  for  these  watchers  of  the  heavens  a  star ; 
and  if  we  are  to  suppose  that  the  foolishness  of  astro- 
logy mingled  itself  with  their  speculations,  this  would 
only  be  anothei  proof  of  that  grace  of  God,  whereby 
He  uses  oftentimes  even  men's  errors  to  deliver  them 
out  of  error  into  the  kingdom  of  the  truth.  On  the 
star  for  the  star-gazers,  and  on  the  other  similar  dealings 
of  God's  grace,  Donne  has  beautifully  said :  "  God 
speaks  in  such  forms  and  such  phrases  as  may  most 
work  upon  them  to  whom  He  speaks.  Of  David,  that 
was  a  shepherd  before,  God  says  He  took  him  to  feed 
his  people.  To  those  Magi  of  the  East  who  were  given 
to  the  study  of  the  stars,  God  gave  a  Star  to  be  their 


*  Thus  Augustine  in  a  sermon  on  Epiphany  (Serm,  204:)  Quia 
ergo  Fax  venerat  eis  qui  erant  longe,  et  Pax  eis  qui  erant  prope,  pas- 
tores  Israelitse  tanquam  prope  inventi,  eo  die  quo  natus  est  Christus,  ad 
eum  venerunt,  viderunt  et  exsultaverunt :  Magi  autem  Gentiles,  tan- 
quam longe  inventi,  tot  diebus  interpositjs  ab  illo  quo  natus  est,  hodie 
pervenerunt,  invenerunt,  adoraverunt. 


MATT.  II.  1.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  19 

guide  to"  Christ  at  Bethlehem.  To  those  who  followed 
him  to  Capernaum  for  meat,  Christ  took  occasion  by  that 
to  preach  to  them  of  the  spiritual  food  of  their  souls. 
To  the  Samaritan  woman  whom  he  found  at  the  well, 
he  preached  of  the  water  of  life.  Beloved,  Christ  puts 
no  man  out  of  his  way,  (for  sinful  courses  are  no  ways, 
but  continual  deviations,)  to  go  to  heaven.  Christ 
makes  heaven  all  things  to  all  men,  that  he  might  gain 
all." 

The  remarkable  symmetry  which  the  two  comings, 
that  of  the  shepherds  and  the  Magi,  contemplated  in 
this  relation  to  one  another,  present — the  manner  in 
which  they  serve  mutually  as  the  complement  each  of 
the  other,  would  of  itself  render  suspicious  any  inter- 
pretation of  the  last,  by  which  these  harmonies  and 
this  symmetry  would  be  disturbed  or  lost.  There  is, 
however,  such  a  theory  about  it:  for  there  have  been, 
at  different  times,  those  who  have  seen  in  these  Magi 
the  representatives,  not  of  the  Gentiles,  but  of  the  ten 
tribes.  But  not  to  urge  that  the  entire  traditional 
interpretation  of  the  Church  is  against  this  view,  nor 
yet  that  this  visit  of  theirs  is  thus  robbed  in  great 
part  of  that  deeper  significance  which  now  it  has,  this 
scheme  proceeds  on  the  assumption,  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  ten  tribes  and  the  two  survived  the 
exile, — that  the  former  still  enjoyed  a  separate  corporate 
existence;  whereas  all  evidence  goes  to  prove  that,  in 
the  exile,  the  distinction,  which  had  been  mainly  poli- 
tical, and  of  which,  as  being  such,  the  motives  existed 
no  longer,  was  broken  down.  In  their  common  distress, 
they  and  the  two  tribes  returned,  as  far  as  it  was  then 


20  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  1  . 

possible,  into  national  and  ecclesiastical  fellowship  willi 
one  another;  and  although,  when  permission  to  return 
into  their  own  land  was  given,  it  naturally  befell  that 
many  more  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  and  Levi  availed 
themselves  of  it  than  of  those  carried  away  more  than 
a  century  before  them,  yet  to  these  there  attached 
themselves  not  a  few  out  of  the  ten  tribes.  The  per- 
mission is  explicitly  to  all  the  nation;  (Ezra  i.  3.) 
Those  who  return  contemplate  themselves  as  repre- 
senting, not  a  section  of  the  nation,  but  the  whole; 
they  "offered  for  a  sin-offering  for  all  Israel  twelve 
he-goats."  (Ezra  vi.  17;  viii.  35.)  St.  Paul  speaks  of 
the  nation  existing  in  his  day  as  "our  /w;e/t;e  tribes;" 
(Acts  xxvi.  7;)  and  the  word  expresses  yet  more 
strongly  in  the  original  the  unbroken  unity  of  the 
twelve. 1  St.  James  also,  addressing  himself  to  such 
portions  of  the  nation  as  dwelt  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
Holy  Land,  does  not  assume  that  the  ten  tribes  had 
disappeared  beyond  the  range  of  vision,  and  had  been 
altogether  lost  sight  of,  or  that  they  stood  on  any  dif- 
ferent footing  from  the  two,  but  embraces  all  alike  in  a 
common  salutation,  which  is  addressed  "  to  the  twelve 
tribes  in  dispersion."  (i.  1.) 

If,  against  this  evidence,  any  should  yet  affirm  that 
the  ten  tribes  maintained  a  separate  existence,  and  had 
not  reunited  with  their  brethren,  in  this  case  the  ap- 
pellation "  King  of  the  Jews^''  under  which  these  visiters 
ask  for  the  new-born  Child,  would  of  itself  be  quite  de- 

*  To  ^cOfTexa^t/xov  'r;j«wv  =  to  dwdtxaaytjrcTQov  rov  'Icr^ajjx,  Clem. 
Rom.,  Ep.  l,c.  31. 


MATT.  II.  1 .3     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  2 1 

cisive  that  they  were  not  delegates  from  them.  Ambas- 
sadors of  theirs  would  never  have  given  the  question  at 
issue  between  themselves  and  the  two  tribes  so  altogether 
against  themselves  as  in  this  question  it  is  done ;  or, 
at  least,  would  certainly  have  never  asked  for  the  new- 
born King  in  language  which  implied  that  He  did  not 
belong  by  nearest  right  to  themselves  as  well  as  to  the 
Jews.^  They  would  have  asked  for  him  as  ^^£ing  of 
Israelj^^  which  they  would  have  known  was  at  once  the 
theocratic  name,  (John  i.  50;  xii.  13;)  and  that  which 
included  all  members  of  the  ^aS"ix,ct<pvXov  as  having 
their  equal  share  in  Him;  and  not  2.s  ^^ King  of  the 
Jews^^  thus  bringing  forward  a  single  tribe,  and  that 
the  rival  one,  as  though  it  represented  and  embraced 
the  whole  nation.  The  question  as  it  now  stands,  the 
title,  ^' King  of  the  Jews,^^  most  natural  on  the  lips 
of  a  Gentile,  who  would  take  the  nation  as  he  ac- 
tually found  it,  and  with  very  slightest  knowledge  of 
its  antecedent  history,  (thus  see  Matt,  xxvii.  11,29, 
37,  and  compare  ver.  42  of  the  same  chapter,)  would 
have  been  quite  unsuitable  in  the  mouth  of  any  actual 
member  of  the  nation :  least  of  all  would  it  have  been 
used  by  them  whom  the  very  name,  so  far  as  it  went, 
excluded  from  having  part  and  lot  in  this  King.  To 
have   used   it  would   have    involved  the   same   contrt- 


'■  It  needs  not  to  observe  that  'lavSmoi  (=Dlin^)  was  a  name  de- 
rived from  'lovdag,  the  patriarch  Judah;  see  Josephus,  Antt,  xL  5,  4  ; 
who  is  not,  however,  quite  correct  in  saying  that  it  first  sprung  up  after 
the  return  from  Babylon;  rather  it  seems  to  have  come  into  use,  and 
would  naturally  have  done  so,  afl«r  the  carrying  away  of  the  ten  tribes 
into  captivity.     (Jer.  xxxii.  12;  xxxiv.  9;  xxxviii.  19;  xl.  11 ;  xliii.  9.) 


22  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

diction,  the  same  denial  on  their  part  of  their  own 
position,  as  would  our  giving  to  Romanists  the  title  of 
Catholics. 

Thus  much  in  regard  of  these  Magi,  who  and  what  they 
were.  No  doubt  when  they  came  to  Jerusalem,  saying 
'■'Where  is  He  that  is  born  King  of  the  Jewsf^  they  had 
taken  for  granted  that  the  royal  Child  would  have  been 
born  in  the  royal  city,  and  that  they  should  find  Him  there. 
For  not  as  yet  was  revealed  to  them  that  mysterious 
law  which,  running  through  all  events  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  repeated  itself  in  this — that  law,  according  to 
which  the  weak  things  of  the  world  are  ever  chosen  to 
confound  the  things  that  are  mighty, — lowly  Bethlehem 
before  haughty  Jerusalem, — even  as  this  little  planet  of 
ours  before  far  vaster  worlds,  as  the  sphere  in  which  the 
great  mystery  of  redemption  should  be  accomplished. 
Jerusalem  indeed  shall  have  the  guilt  of  the  Lord's 
death,  but  Bethlehem  the  glory  of  his  birth.  And  as 
they  looked  to  find  him  in  the  royal  city,  so,  it  would 
seem,  as  well  in  the  royal  palace.  There,  probably, 
their  first  inquiries  were  made ;  and  thus  it  may  have 
come  to  pass  that  the  tidings  of  their  coming,  and  of 
the  question  with  which  they  came,  so  quickly  reached 
the  ears  of  the  usurper  that  now  sat  upon  David's 
throne. 

But  on  what  grounds  do  they  rest  their  confident 
expectation  that  this  King  was  born?  ''For  we  have 
seen  his  Star  in  the  East.^^  That  the  great  events  of 
this  world  were  not  without  their  corresponding  appear- 
ances in  the  heavenly  world,  appearances  which  mani- 
fested themselves  especially  in  the  stars,  was  a  wide- 


MATT.  II.  2.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  23 

spread  conviction  of  antiquity,  which  possessed  its 
truth,  however  often  it  may  have  been  drawn  down 
into  the  service  of  superstition  and  error.  In  the 
life  of  the  Redeemer  the  presentiment  which  found  its 
utterance  in  this  belief,  won  first  its  full  reahty  and 
truth.  Its  partial  truth  it  already  had  :  for  we  cannot 
set  to  the  account  of  accident  or  imagination  all  those 
remarkable  coincidences  between  heaven  and  earth,  all 
those  testimonies  which  the  signs  and  tokens  of  heaven 
have  so  often  yielded,  and  men  taken  note  of,  that  the 
great  of  this  world  do  not  come  or  go  without  warning. 
This,  indeed,  is  but  one  aspect  of  that  sympathy,  so 
deep  and  so  earnest,  which  we  may  trace  as  every  where 
existing  between  nature  and  man.  The  former  is  not 
to  the  latter  as  a  dead  horse  under  a  living  rider,  but 
one  thought,  one  life,  one  purpose,  proceeding  indeed 
from  the  higher  to  the  lower,  animates  them  both.  At 
no  time  does  nature  put  on  a  careless,  unmeaning 
face,  when  aught  that  intimately  concerns  her  foster- 
child  man  is  being  done,  nor  make  as  though  this  was 
nothing  unto  her.  On  the  contrary,  her  history  runs 
parallel,  and  is  subordinate,  to  his, — the  great  moments  in 
the  life  of  nature  concurring  with  the  great  moments 
in  the  life  of  man,  and  therefore  most  of  all  with  the 
great  crises  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  concerns  him 
the  nearest  of  all.  Thus,  during  all  those  hours  that 
the  Son  of  God  hung  upon  the  cross,  there  was  dark- 
ness over  the  whole  earth ;  nature  shuddered  to  her 
very  centre,  at  the  moment  when  he  expired ;  (Matt. 
xxvii.  45,  51,  52 ;)  for  it  was  her  King,  as  well  as 
man's,    that  died.      And    not   otherwise  we   conclude 


24  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

that  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  to  judgment  wiil 
be  coincident  and  connected  with  a  great  organic 
transformation  of  this  natural  world  on  which  we  live. 
Its  hidden  fires  shall  break  forth ;  it  shall  be  no  longer 
a  fit  dwelling-,.]ace  for  man  as  he  now  is:  the  natural 
and  the  spiritual  JEon  shall  have  come  simultaneously  to 
their  close. 

But  this  subordination  of  natural  to  spiritual  epochs, 
these  tokens  of  nature's  sympathy  with  man,  are 
not  limited,  any  more  than  are  his  destinies,  merely  to 
the  planet  which  he  actually  inhabits.  The  great 
shaking  of  the  nations,  the  fear  and  the  perplexity 
which  shall  go  before  that  day  of  Christ's  second 
coming,  shall  be  accompanied  with  like  signs  of  dis- 
tress in  the  heavenly  world;  -'The  powers,"  not  of 
earth  only,  but  "of  the  heavens  shall  be  shaken;" 
(Matt.  xxiv.  29 ;)  there  shall  be  some  great  perturba- 
tion and  derangement  of  the  fixed  laws  by  which  the 
celestial  bodies  have  hitherto  been  holden  each  in  its 
appointed  orbit  and  place.  Every  where  in  that 
planetary  system  of  which  this  earth  is  the  heart  and 
moral  centre,  there  shall  be  troubled  echoes  of  the 
great  discords  of  humanity.  The  sickness  of  fear 
which  overspreads  the  faces  of  men  shall  spread  dark- 
ness also  over  the  lights  of  heaven.  (Matt.  xxiv.  29; 
cf.  Isai.  xiii.  9,  10;  xxiv.  20,  23;  xxxiv.  4;  Ezek. 
xxxii.  7,  8;  Joel  ii.  30,31  ;  Hag.  ii.  7.)  And  as  then 
it  will  be  in  the  heaven,  so  already  has  it  been, — ^though 
indeed  with  a  difference.  For  if  these  distressful  signs 
in  the  firmament  of  our  heaven  shall  be  fit  prognostics 
of  "  the  great  and    terrible    day  of  the    Lord,"    it    be- 


MATT.  H.  2.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  25 

seemed  Him  with  quite  another  sign  to  fore-announce 
that  other  coming,  which  should  be  only  with  glad 
tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  people.  That  new  thing 
upon  earth  was  more  fitly  fore-announced  by  the  calm 
and  silent  splendour  of  a  new  Star  in  the  heaven — a 
Star,  as  we  may  well  believe,  larger,  lovelier,  and 
brighter  than  any  of  the  hosts  of  heaven ;  even  as  He  of 
whom  it  told  was  so  far  fairer  than  all  the  angels  of  God 
from  whom,  or  children  of  men  to  whom,  He  came. 

This  very  symbol  of  the  star,  which  had  its  partial 
fitness  when  regarded  as  the  herald  of  any  great  and 
glorious  birth  among  men,  how  entire  a  fitness  did  it 
now  possess,  shining  out  in  the  heaven  as  heaven's 
natural  evangelist  of  the  highest  and  holiest  birth  in 
time.'  Himself  "  the  bright  and  morning  Star,"  (Rev. 
xxii.  16;  cf.  ii.  28,)  He  found  in  this  symbol  that  which, 
better  than  any  other  among  the  works  of  his  own 
hands,  was  adapted  to  set  forth,  however  weakly  even 
it  could  do  it,  his  unsullied  purity,  his  transcendent 
briofhtness,^  his  infinite  exaltation  above  all  the  tumults 


*  We  have  many  allusions  to  the  surpassing  brightness  of  this  Star. 
Thus  Ignatius  (Ad  Ephes,  c.  19;)  Ilwc  ovv  t<pxviQeedr]  [o  Ku/i/oc]  roig 
aiiaat',  'Ao-ttjq  tv  ovpavu  fxajuxptv  vTrsp  Tiavmc  rove  a<m^ac,  xat  to 
<pu)(  avTOv  avsKKaltjTov  «v,  kui  ^ivitr^iov  TrdLpn^sy  rj  xAiroryjg  avTov. 
Ta  Si  Xoina  TrxrXit  aa-TQA^  a.fxA  ij\ice  y.ai  oi\7]V7]  <vopo(  tyiriro  Tfo 
a.or^Qi'ctv'To?  Si  TjV  vTTtp^dLhKwy  rva  (pai;  avrov  vireg  Tcaira.  In  the  choir 
which  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars  form  around  this  brightest  one,  we  have 
a  manifest  blending  of  elements  drawn  from  Joseph's  dream  (Gen.  xxxvii« 
D)  with  the  narration  of  the  Evangelist;  perhaps  an  unconscious  re- 
miniscence of  that  on  the  part  of  Ignatius.  Thus,  too,  in  the  apocry- 
phal  ProUvangpJium  Jacobi,  ^  21,   the   Magians  reply  to   Herod; 


26  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

and  confusions  of  this  earth  of  ours.  For,  to  quote  the 
words  of  South :  "  There  are  spots  (they  say)  not  in  the 
moon  only,  but  also  in  the  face  of  the  sun  itself:  but 
this  Star  was  of  a  greater  and  more  unblemished  lustre; 
for  not  the  least  spot  was  ever  discovered  in  it,  though 
malice  and  envy  itself  were  the  perspectives  through 
which  most  of  the  world  beheld  it.  And  as  it  is  the 
privilege  of  the  celestial  luminaries  to  receive  no  tinc- 
ture, suillage,  or  defilement  from  the  most  noisome 
sinks  and  dung-hills  here  below,  but  to  maintain  a 
pure,  untainted,  virgin  light,  in  spite  of  all  their  ex- 
halations ;  so  our  Saviour  shined  in  the  world  with  such 
an  invincible  light  of  holiness,  as  suffered  nothing  of  the 
corrupt  manners  and  depraved  converse  of  men  to  rub 
the  least  fihh  or  pollution  upon  Hira."^ 

TjiSo/uiv  tta-TiQa  Tcafjcfxtyi^ti,  Xoifjtipavra  «v  xois  aarpotg  rourotg  xai 
a/x^XuvovTA  avTOvg  rou  <j)atvetv.  (Thilo,  Codex  Jlpocryphus,  p.  257; 
see  also  p.  390.)     And  Prudentius,  in  his  noble  twelfth  Cathemerinon : 

Haec  Stella,  quae  solis  rotam 
Vincit  decore  ac  lumine, 
Venisse  terris  nunciat 
Cum  came  terrestri  Deum. 

En  Persici  ex  orbis  sinu, 
Sol  unde  sumit  januam, 
Cernunt  periti  interpretes 
Regale  vexillum  magi : 

Quod  ut  refulsit,  ceteri 

Cessere  signorum  globi, 

Nee  pulcher  est  ausus  suam 

Conferre  foniaam  lucifer. 
*  From  the  exquisitely  beautiful  conclusion  of  a  sermon  on  this  text: 
"I  am  the  Root  and  Offspring  of  David,  and  the  bright  and  morning 
Star."-South's  Sermons,  1727,  v.  3,  p.  281-293. 


MATT.  II.  2.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  27 

That  men  should  have  anticipated  this  symbol,  and 
snatched  at  it  before,  is  nothing  strange.  If  they  had 
not  so  done,  this  would  have  been  almost  of  itself  an 
argument  that  it  did  not  possess  that  highest  fitness 
which  indeed  it  does.  Coming  as  did  the  Son  of  God 
in  the  end  of  time,  it  lay  in  the  necessity  of  things  that 
these  signs  and  symbols,  with  indeed  much  that  lay 
yet  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  truth,  should  have  been 
in  a  measure  pre-occupied  by  others,  that  what  was 
truly  given  in  Him — the  glory  which,  in  all  its  fulness, 
arrayed  his  person,  and  centred  in  it — should  have 
been  in  some  small  measure  actually  lent,  or  should 
have  been  imagined  to  have  been  lent,  to  others  that 
went  before  Him.^  Thus  to  take  but  a  single,  yet  an 
illustrious  example.  The  heathen  religions  boasted  of 
their  virgin-born,  as  of  Buddha  and  Zoroaster,  as  of 
Pythagoras  and  Plato.  It  much  concerns  us  to  deter- 
mine in  what  relation  and  connexion  we  will  put  their 
legend  and  our  history ;  whether  we  will  use  the  truth 
to  show  that  the  falsehood  was  not  all  falsehood,  and 
for  the  detecting  the  golden  grains  of  a  true  anticipa- 


^  Wetstein  {in  loc.)  has  a  rich  collection  of  passages  gathered  from 
the  heathen  antiquity,  which  put  the  appearance  of  a  star,  comet,  or 
other  celestial  phenomenon,  in  relation  with  the  birth  of  some  illustri- 
ous personage.  One  may  suffice  (Justin  Hist,  37,  2:)  Hujus  [Mith- 
ridatis]  futuram  magnitudinem  etiam  coelestia  ostenta  praedixerant. 
Nam  eo  quo  genitus  est  anno,  et  quo  regnare  primum  csepit,  stella 
cometes  per  utrumque  tempus  LXX.  diebus  ita  luxit,  ut  coelum  omne 
conflagrare  videretur.  — The  star  which  was  believed  to  have  announced 
Julius  CaBsar's  heavenly  birth,  his  adoption  among  the  gods,  is  well 
known.  (Suetonius,  Caesar,  88;  Virgil,  Eel.,  d.  47;  Pliny,  H.  N.,  1. 
2,c.23.) 


28  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [MATT.  II.  2. 

tion  which  lay  concealed  amid  all  its  dross ;  or  whether 
we  will  suffer  the  falsehoods  to  cast  a  slight  and  sus- 
picion upon  the  truth,  as  though  that  was  but  the 
crowning  falsehood  of  them  all.  In  the  present  position 
of  the  controversy  with  infidelity  we  cannot  let  these 
parallels  alone  if  we  would, — even  if  we  were  willing  to 
forego  the  precious  witness  for  the  glory  and  truth  of 
the  Christian  Faith  which  they  contain.  We  cannot 
ignore  them;  if  they  are  not  for  us,  they  will  be  used 
against  us.  But  they  are  for  us;  since  we  may  justly 
ask, — and  it  is  no  playing  with  imperfect  analogies,  for 
the  question  may  be  transferred  from  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual  world, — Are  the  parhelia,  however  numerous, 
to  be  accepted  as  evidence  that  all  is  optical  illusion, 
that  there  is  no  such  true  body  of  light  as  the  sun  after 
all ;  or  rather,  does  not  the  very  fact  of  their  delusively 
painting  the  horizon,  tell  of  and  announce  a  sun,  which 
is  surely  travelling  up  from  behind? 

In  the  present  case,  this  Star  I  conceive,  as  so  many 
ancients*  and  moderns  have  done,  to  have  been  a  new 
star*  in   the  heavens.      Such  would   most   filly  have 


'Thus  Eusebius  (Demonst  Evang.,  I.  8:)  Sevoc  y.ai  cu  awTj&rji; 
ovde  Twv  noXXuV  v.tti  yvwqifjt.o}V  iiq,  aXXa  rig  3c«ivo?  xai  rtoc  AO-xr^Q 
enKpAViig  xtt  /?t»  <njfjt.uov  ^bvov  <b(a(rrr}Qog  iSriXov  xAra\afjL\pdL\rog  tu 
TtsLVTi  y.oO/jt.a),0i  tjv  o  X/)t!rTOf  tou  ©EOf, /ctsya?  xai  vjot  eta-ryjo,  ov  tJJV 
nv.ova  fTVfx^oAiKccg  o  cpaviig  ron  xoii: [x^yon  sTts<pipsTo.  And  Augustine 
(Con.  Faust.,  1.  2,  c.  5:)  Novo  Virginis  partu  novum  sidus  apparuit: 
non  ex  illis  erat  haec  stellis,  quae  ab  initio  creaturae  itinerum  suorum  or- 
dinem  sub  creatoris  lege  custodiunt.  Cf.  Ambrose,  Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  2, 
c.  48;  Origen,  Con.  Cels.,  1.  ],  c.  58. 

'  Some,  as  is  well  known,  have  supposed  it  to  have  Ikjch,  not   so 


MATT.  II.  2.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  29 

announced  a  new  thing,  that  a  virgin  should  conceive, 
that  God  should  be  with  us.  And  I  cannot  but  think 
that  the  language  of  the  wise  men  iaiplies  as  much, 
whose  attention  certainly  no  other  signal  in  the  heaven 
would  have  been  at  all  so  well  fitted  to  arouse.  It 
would  be  no  sufficient  objection,  even  if  it  could  be 
clearly  shown  that  the  appearance  of  such  new  stars  was 
altogether  unheard  of,  and  without  precedent.  For 
that  which  this  Star  announced  was  new,  and  without 
precedent  as  well.  But  it  is,  in  fact,  very  far  from  so 
being.  Not  only  does  there  manifest  itself  a  tendency 
in  the  more  luminous  nebulae  of  the  starry  heaven,  as 
Herschel  has  so  gloriously  described,  to  consolidate 
and  mass  themselves  into  spheres,  such  as  should  take 
their  place  by  entire  right  among  the  heavenly  bodies ; 
not  only  are    there  even  now  stars  thus  in  process  of 


much  a  single  star,  as  a  constellation.  But  certainly  the  word  with 
which  it  is  designated  by  St.  Matthew  lends  no  support  to  this  view,  but 
rather  excludes  it.  Throughout  the  chapter  it  is  aartjo,  and  not  uc-tqov. 
These  words  differ  from  one  another  in  the  same  way  as  stella  and  sidus 
{=siSo(,)  in.  Latin;  Stern  and  Gestrin,  in  German;  sfar  and  coa- 
slellation,  in  English ;  the  first  being  one  of  the  single  luminaries  of 
the  sky,  the  second,  like  Orion  or  the  Pleiades,  a  group  or  complex  of 
stars.  The  further  distinction  which  exists  in  the  Latin  between  Stella 
and  astrum,  that  stella  is  one  of  the  common  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
host,  astrum  one  of  its  brighter  luminaries,  come  not  here  into  account. 
But  while  utttiq  and  aa-rgov,  stella  and  sidus,  may  be  thus  distin- 
guished, it  must  at  the  same  time  be  acknowledged  that,  even  by  the 
best  writers,  alike  in  Greek  and  in  Latin,  the  distinction  is  often  ne- 
glected, although  much  oftener  in  making  acrr^ov  and  sidus  to  stand  for 
some  single  star  than  the  converse.  (Doderlein's  Synonyme,  v,  4,  p. 
409.) 


30  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

formation,  but  we  possess  authentic  records  of  the 
sadden  appearance  of  such  stars,  and  those  of  the  very 
first  magnitude,  shining  out  with  a  brightness  and 
briUiancy  almost  unknown  to  the  habitual  denizens  of 
the  sky — stars  which,  after  a  longer  or  shorter  period, 
have  again  gradually  gone  out,  or  suddenly  left  their 
places ;  so  that  no  trace  has  ever  been  discovered  of  them 
since.  More  than  once  such  stars  have  excited  no 
small  amount  of  attention  and  admiration.'  Among 
the  more  illustrious  in  modern  times  is  the  star  called 
Tycho  Brahe's,  he  having  first  given  an  astronomical 
report  about  it.  Nor  will  it,  I  think,  be  without 
interest,  nor  alien  to  the  matter  in  hand,  to  offer  here 
a  few  notices  of  this  stranger  in  the  heaven,  the  stages 
of  whose  brief,  and,  at  first,  so  glorious  existence,  have 
found  more  than  one  careful  chronicler.^  It  shone  out 
suddenly  in  Cassiopeia  on  the  night  of  Nov.  11,  1572. 
At  the  beginning  it  surpassed  in  apparent  size  all  the 
fixed  stars,  even  those  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  thus 
even  Sirius  and  the  Lyre.  Indeed,  it  somewhat  ex- 
ceeded even  the  planet  Jupiter,  which  was  then  ap- 
proaching the  earth,  and  larger  than  usual,  so  that  it 
came  very  near  to  the  splendour  of  Venus,  when  nearest 
to  the  earth,  and  at  its  fullest  and  brightest.  For  a  season, 
almost  through  the  whole  of  November,  it  retained,  well 
nigh  without  diminution,  this,  its  majestic  fulness  of  light, 


*  This  had  not  missed  the  attention  of  the  ancient  astronomers. 
Thus  Pliny  (H.  N.,  1.  2.  c.  22:)  In  ipso  coelo  stellae  repente  nascuntur. 
Von  Littrow,   Die  Wunder  der  Himmels,  p.  227;   Pfaff;  Dor 
Mensch  und  die  Sterne. 


MATT.  II.  2.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  31 

SO  that  it  was  distinctly  seen  by  many  whose  vision  was 
acute,  in  the  day-time  even  at  mid-day  itself — which,  with 
the  exception  of  Venus,  is  the  case  with  no  other  star; 
and  in  the  night-time,  if  the  clouds  were  not  too  thick,  it 
shone  through  them,  while  the  other  stars  remained 
obscured.  Yet  this  superiority  of  size  it  did  not  retain 
through  its  whole  duration ;  but  by  gradual  defect  it  be- 
came smaller,  till  it  vanished  altogether.  And  in  the 
same  manner  as  in  the  course  of  its  existence  it  changed 
its  visible  bulk  by  a  progressive  diminution ;  even  so  it 
did  not  throughout  display  the  same  innate  complexion 
of  light  which  it  showed  at  its  birth.  At  the  begin- 
ning, while  in  magnitude  it  rivalled  Venus  and  Jupiter, 
its  light  was  white,  clear-shining,  of  a  mild  and  gracious 
aspect,  like  that  of  these  two  beneficent  planets.  After- 
wards, this  splendid  appearance  was  altered  through  a 
certain  yellowish  tinge,  until,  early  in  the  spring  of  1573, 
it  degenerated  into  a  red,  like  that  of  Mars  or  Aldebaran. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  spring,  and  notably  in  May, 
it  assumed  a  gray  colour,  running  into  a  leaden  blue, 
such  as  shows  itself  in  Saturn.  This  colour  it  retained 
almost  to  the  last,  only  that  ever  as  it  approached  its 
end,  the  light  it  gave  was  duller,  dimmer,  and  more 
troubled.  In  its  twinkling  it  did  not  resemble  the 
planets ;  it  had  this  in  common  with  the  fixed  stars.  It 
finally  seemed  to  go  out  in  March,  1574,  sixteen  months 
after  it  was  first  seen ;  nor  have  there  been  any  the 
slightest  traces  of  it  discovered  since. 

Keppler's  star,  which  appeared  thirty-two  years 
later,  in  1604,  excited  perhaps  even  more  attention, 
from  its  magnitude,  the   remarkable   character  as  well 


32  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  2. 

as  brilliancy  of  its  light,  the  period  of  its  appearing-, 
and  the  significant  position  among  the  chiefest  planets 
which  it  occupied  in  the  heavens.  These  last  circum- 
stances were  the  occasion  of  some  deeply  interesting 
speculations  on  the  part  of  Kepplcr,  the  great  astro- 
nomer, who  bestowed  on  this  star  peculiar  attention, 
and  published  two  or  three  works  in  regard  of  it. 
He  observed  that  its  appearance  occurred  simul- 
taneously with,  and  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of,  a  remarkable  conjunction  of  the  planets  Saturn, 
Jupiter,  and  Mars,  in  the  sign  of  the  Fish,  such  a  con- 
junction as,  occurring  at  rarest  intervals,  must  yet  have 
occurred  as  regarded  the  first  two  planets  in  747,  and  all 
three  in  748,  a.  u.  c,  in  years  that  is,  either  of  them 
very  likely  to  have  been,  and  one  which  most  probably 
was,  the  true  Annus  Domini.  This  was  a  conjunction, 
the  anticipation  of  which  must  needs  have  held  all 
astronomers  in  eager  suspense  then  as  it  did  in  his 
own  days;  and  thus  he  was  induced  to  conjecture  that 
such  a  star  might  then  also  have  shown  itself  in 
exactly  the  same  quarter  of  the  sky,  when  it  could 
not  have  failed  to  arouse  the  profoundest  attention  of 
such  learned  watchers  of  the  heavens  as  we  have  a 
right  to  assume  these  Magi  to  have  been.^ 


*  I  do  not  of  course  pretend  to  be  able,  in  the  very  slightest  de- 
gree, to  estimate  the  worth  of  these  speculations  of  Keppler's,  but  1 
would  not  pass  them  altogether  by,  seeing  that  modem  astronomers  and 
chronologists  recur  with  no  little  interest  to  them.  Munter,  the  learned 
Danish  bishop,  in  his  little  book,  Der  Stern  der  Weisen,  (Copenhagen, 
1827,)  was  the  first  to  call  renewed  attention  to  them;  whom  Ideler, 
(Handb.  der  Chronol.,  2.  339  seq.,;   and   Wieseier,  (Chronol.  Sy, 


MATT.  11.2.]        THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  33 

But,  with  all  this,  there  still  remains  the  question, 
what  were  the  connecting  links  between  seeing  a  star, 
and  concluding  that  a  "  King  of  the  Jews  "  was  born  ? 
And   this   brings    us    at  once   to   the   consideration   of 

nopse,  pp.  62  seq.)  follow.  Certainly  Keppler  so  tells  his  tale, 
that  even  one  who  is  altogether  a  layman  in  these  matters  may  yet 
find  pleasure  in  following  him ;  as  when  he  is  setting  forth  the  im- 
portant position  which  his  star  occupied  among  the  heavenly  bodies,  as 
compared  with  the  earlier  of  Tycho  Bralie  (De  Stella  Novd;  Pragae, 
1606,  p.  125:)  Praecipua  vero  et  consideratione  dignissima  dissimilitudo 
fuit  in  loco  et  tempore.  Ilia  enim  extra  limites  Zodiaci  fulsit,  in  sidere 
Cassiopeiae,  loco  coeli  infrequenti,  nee  uUis  planetarum  accessionibus 
nobilitato  :  haec  stationem  sibi  elegit  proxime  viam  regiam  solis,  lunae, 
ceterorumque planetarum;  sic  ut  ab  omnibus  planetis  salutaretur ;  Satur- 
no  vero  paene  corporaliter  jungeretur.  lUam  etsi  clarae  aliquot  stellae  in 
(^assiopeia  secundae  magnitudinis  circumstabant,  vulgares  tamen  illae 
faerunt,  et  de  promiscuo  fixarum  numero,  nulla  proprii  motfts  nobilitate 
insignes :  hsec  nostra  vero  in  medium  trium  superiorum  planetarum  sese 
ingessit,  Jove  et  Marte  satellitibus  anteambulonibus,  Saturno  stipatore 
pedissequo  usa  ....  Ilia  vulgare  et  ignobilc  tempus  invasit,  nulla  pecu- 
liari  nota.  insigne ;  haec  inciditin  eum  prsecise  annum,  quem  astrologi 
universi   Trigoni    ignei   principio,   eventurisque  prodigiis  ccelestibus, 

diligentissimis  praemonitionibus   designarant ; in  eum   prsecise 

coeli  locum,  ad  quem  omnium  astrologorum  oculi  congressum  Jovis  et 
Martis  exspectantes,  dirigebantur.  Itaque  prior  ilia  mundo  non  prae- 
monito  supervenit,  et  velut  improvisus  hostis,  occupatis  urbis  moeniis, 
prius  in  foro  comparuit,  quam  cives  expeditionem  ejus  fama  percepis. 
sent;  nostra  vero  vulgo  expectata  a  longo  tempore,  cum  multa  solenni- 
tate  et  triumphali  pompa  ad  diem  constitutum  est  ingressa;  more  prae- 
potentis  alicujus  monarchae,  qui  metropohm  regni  invisurus,  preemissis 
longe  antea  metatoribus,  loca  comitatui  designat. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  surpassing  brightness  which  so  many 

ascribed,  and,  as  I  cannot  doubt,  rightly,  to  that  Star,  the  symbol  of  Him 

who  was  Himself  "the  brightness  of  his  Father's  glory,"  Himself"  the 

jiright  and  morning  Star."     It  may  be  worth  while  to  quote  one  or 

o 


34  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

another  question,  and  one  which  has  much  divided 
interpreters — namely,  whether  this  Star  of  the  wise 
men  stands  in  any  relation  to  the  Star  which  Balaam 
in  spirit  saw,  the  Star  which  should  come  out  of  Jacob, 
and  of  which  he  foretold;  (Num.  xxiv.  17  ;)  and  if  so, 
in  what?  Was  there  now  a  fulfilment  of  that  pro- 
phecy ?  Nay  more,  did  the  Magi,  speaking  of  "  his 
Star'^  allude  to  such  a  prophecy, — which  must  in  that 
case  have  been  committed  to  writing,  and  thus  have 
survived  in  the  East?  Did  they  mean  to  affirm  that 
now  at  length  that  mysterious  word,  which  another 
wise  man  from  the  East,  and  one,  like  themselves, 
beyond  the  pale  of  the  elect  nation,  one,  therefore, 
whose  spiritual  successors^  they  were,  had  spoken,  M^as 
fulfilled  ?     If  so,  we  have  the  connexion  at  once. 

two  out  of  many  passages,  in  which  Keppler  tries  to  tell  out  something 
of  the  impression  which  the  extraordinary  brilliancy  of  this  star  made 
on  himself  and  on  others  that  beheld  it.  It  may  help  us  a  little  to  re- 
alize the  wonder  and  admiration  with  which  that  flaming  standard  in 
the  heavens  must  have  been  watched  by  those  eastern  sages,  and  by  all 
whose  eyes  had  been  drawn  toward  it.  Thus,  in  a  work  published  hi  the 
year  subsequent  to  its  disappearance  (De  Vero  Anno  Nat.  Christi,  1606, 
p.  3:)  Quisquis  es  qui  portentum  stupendum  oculis  tuis  non  aspexisti, 
facem  imaginare  libi  flagrantissimam  luminis  purissimi,  ventis  validissi- 
mis  agitatam  ct  quassatara ;  talis  erat  vibratio  luminis,  talis  flammarum 
ebullitio,  talis  scintillatio  ignivoma  rapidissima.  Compare  De  Stella 
Nova,  1606  :  De  specie  stellae  convenit  omnibus,  fuisse  stellisfixis  si- 
mUlimam,  radiis  undequaque  ut  fixarum  eraicantibus,  scintillatione  cla- 
rissima,  coruscatione  seu  vibratione  tarn  rapida,  ut  negaverint  quidam 
sibi  dum  viverent,  unquam  quicquam  in  coelo  visum  esse  aeque  pernici 
motu,  ut  ipsi  loquebantur. 

J  Jerome :  Balaam,  cujus  successores  erant.    On  the  significant  posi- 
tion of  Balaam,  as  he  in  whom  **  set  the  sun  of  prophecy  in  the  horizon 


MATT.  II.  2.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE   WISE  MEN.  35 

Many  in  old  lime  have  asserted  both — namely,  that 
this  Star  did  in  the  intentions  of  God  stand  in  such  a 
connexion,  as  the  fulfilment  of  that  foregoing  word  ;  and 
also  that  these  inquirers  from  the  East,  among  whom 
the  prophecy  of  Balaam  had  survived  independently  of 
Scripture,  meant,  in  those  words  of  theirs,  "  We  have 
seen  his  Star,^^  speaking  of  it  as  one  well  known,  to  allude 
to,  and  tliemselves  to  affirm,  such  a  connexion;  so  that 
their  "^e  have  seen^^  is  the  complement  of  his  "I 
shall  see."'  Thus  Origen  ;^  Jerome  also,  and  many 
more  among  the  ancients.'^     In  modern  times,  the  rela- 


of  the  Gentile  world,"  and  on  the  manj^  probabilities  that  his  prophecies, 
especially  those  at  SShittim,  were  reduced  to  writing  among  the  Moabites 
and  the  Midianites,  I  would  refer  the  reader  to  Bishop  Horsley's  most 
interesting  Dissertation,  "  On  the  Prophecies  of  the  Messiah  dispersed 
among  the  heathen."     Sermons,  1829,  v.  2,  pp,  297—312. 

*  Ambrose  (in  Luc,  1. 2,  c,  48  :)  lile  stellam  vidit  in  spiritu,  isti  vide- 
runt  oculis.  Calov:  Quam  vidisse  Bileam  in  posteris  suis  dici  potest, 
nempe  in  magis  ex  oriente  ad  prsesepe  Domini  perductis. 

*Con.  Cels.,  1.  1,  c.  60;  and  in  his  thirteenth  Sermon  on  Numbers, 
which  has  come  down  to  us  only  in  a  Latin  translation:  Si  enim  a 
Mose  prophetise  ejus  [BalaamiJ  sacris  inserlsB  sunt  volurainibus,  quanto 
magis  descriptae  sunt  ab  iis,  qui  habitabant  tunc  Mesopotamiam,  apud 
quos  magnificus  habebatur  Balaam,  quosque  artis  ejus  constat  fuisse 
discipulos?  Ex  illo  denique  fertur  magorum  gens  et  institutio  in  parti- 
bus  Orientis  vigere;  qui  descripta  habentes  apud  se  omnia,  quce  prophc- 
taverat  Balaam,  etiam  hoc  habuerunt  scriptum,  quod  orietur  Stella  ex 
Jacob,  et  exsvrget  homo  ex  IsrueL  Hjec  scripta  habebant  magi  apud 
semet  ipsos,  et  ideo,  quando  natus  est  Jesus,  agnoverunt  stellam,  et  in- 
tellexerunt  adimpleri  prophetiam. 

^  Theophylact  detects,  for  instance,  but  with  no  great  probability,  as 
it  appears  to  me,  in  the  arujttbxy.Bv  of  Heb.  vii.  14,  an  allusion  to  the 
AiartAi/  aa-rpiv  i^  lax.u,S  :  saymg, Xi/mvi]  i/  Ae^ic  to  AictTuctKyi,  y.at  ix 


36  THE  STAR  OF  THE    \VI5E   MEN.      [maTT.  II.  2- 

lion  has  been  denied  by  most,'  but  has  been  re-af- 
firmed with  great  ingenuity  by  Hengstenberg.  His 
line  of  argument  is  this ;  starting  with  and  taking  for 
granted,  as  indeed  is  admitted  by  all,  that  one  of  St. 
Matthew's  chief  purposes  in  his  Gospel  was  to  show  how 
the  New  Testament  rooted  itself  in  the  Old,  was  the 
perfect  flower  which  unfolded  itself  out  of  that  stalk 
and  stem,  he  urges  that  in  these  first  two  chapters  es- 
pecially, it  was  the  Evangelist's  purpose  to  bring  out 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  in  Him  whom  the  Church 
had  acknowledged  as  the  Christ.  St.  Matthew  is  not 
writing  in  any  sense  an  Ecangeiium  Infantix ;  which, 
in  a  certain  sense,  St.  Luke  may  be  affirmed  to  have 
done:  and  the  difficulties  in  harmonizing  the  two  nar- 
ratives arise  in  good  part  from  the  assumption  that  he 
is,  that  he  has  the  same  intention  as  St.  Luke  has;  while, 
indeed,  quite  another  law  guides  his  selection  of  the  facts 
which  he  records.  He  does  not  write,  but  he  assumes, 
tlie  history.  His  facts  are  only  and  exclusively  those  in 
which  he  can  bring  out  marked  fulfilments  of  Old  Testa- 
ment prophecies,  and  only  so  much  of  them  as  is  neces- 
sary for  this.  ^^That  it  might  be  fulJiUecW''  expressed 
or  understood,  runs  through  the  whole  of  these  two  chap- 
ters— expressed,  I  say,  or  understood;  for  while  often 
expressed,  (as  i.  22  ;  ii.  15,  17,  23;  )  so  also  not  seldom 
understood.  Writing  as  he  does  for  Hebrew  converts, 
who  were  familiar  with  the  Old  Testament,  who  had 
lived  and  moved  in  it  from  their  childhood,  who  had 
drawn  it  in  with  their  mother's  milk — to  whom,  there- 

•  See  Spanheim,  Dab.  Evang.,  v.  2.  p.  369. 


MATT.  II.  2.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  37 

fore,  the  slightest  hint  would  be  sufficient, — he  does  not 
always  count  it  necessary  to  refer  in  as  many  words  to 
the  type  or  prophecy  which  now  was  fulfilled;  being  the 
rather  confident  that  they  would  not  miss  it,  and  would 
be  only  the  better  pleased  at  having  something  left  to 
themselves,  some  claim  made  upon  their  own  mental  ac- 
tivity. As  such  intimations  and  implicit  allusions,  he 
notes  the  mention  of  the  gifts,  whereof  two,  the  gold  and 
the  frankincense,  had  been  expressly  named  in  one  of 
the  passages,  to  which  he  believes  Matthew  would  here 
send  back  his  readers,  Ps.  Ixxii.  10;  Isai.  Ix.  6,  or  once 
more,  the  angel's  word  to  Joseph,  "  They  are  dead  who 
sought  the  young  ChihVs  /[/<?,"  words  which,  to  one 
that  understood,  would  at  once  place  the  fortunes  of  this 
Child  in  mysterious  relation  with  the  fortunes  of  the  for- 
mer great  deliverer  of  Israel ;  (Exod.  iv.  19  ;)  a  subject 
on  which  there  will  be  occasion  to  say  something  more 
presently. 

If  this,  then,  is  St.  ?>latthew's  law  of  selection,  and 
Bengstenberg  maintains  with  great  ingenuity,  and,  in 
the  main,  success,  that  it  does  hold  good  in  every 
other  circumstance  and  incident  mentioned  in  *  these 
chapters,  so  that  nothing  is  told  except  in  its  bearing, 
and  for  the  sake  of  its  bearing,  on  some  prophetic  word 
or  event  that  went  before,  how  inconceivable  it  is  that 
there  should  be  one  exception  to  this,  and  that  one 
the  so  prominent  fact  of  the  Star ;  that  it,  and  it  alone, 
should  hold  on  to  nothing  which  preceded.  But  if  it 
does  involve  an  allusion  to  any  Old  Testament  fact 
or  prophecy,  it  must  needs  be  to  that  of  Balaam,  since 
there  is  no   other   that   the    Evangelist  could  possibly 


38  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

have  had  in  his  eye.  Only  in  that  single  passage  does 
the  Messiah  stand  in  any  relation  to,  or  appear  in  any 
way  symbolized  by,  a  star.  But  that  in  that  passage 
he  does  so,  that  the  Star  there  is  no  other  than  Christ 
Himself,  is  plain  from  his  claiming  of  this  very  title  as 
his  own,  in  some  of  tlie  last  words  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment: "I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  and  the 
bright  and  morning  Star."     (Rev.  xxii.  16.)' 

That  the  Jews  understood  that  prophecy  of  Balaam 
to  refer  to  the  Christ,  they  gave  fearful  witness.  The 
false  Christ  who,  under  Adrian,  took  up  arms  for  the 
last  terrible  struggle  with  Rome,  gave  himself  out  as 
the  Messiah  whom  Balaam  had  foretold ;  and  assumed 
the  name  of  Barchochab,  or  the  Son  of  the  Star,  for 
the  purpose  of  placing  himself  in  nearer  connexion 
with  that  prophecy;  which  we  know  from  cotemporary 
Jewish  writings,  that  the  famous 'Rabbi  Akiba  int(  r- 
preted  with  reference  to  him.^  It  is  certainly  re- 
markable as  well,  that  the  Jew  who  supplied  Celsus 
with  his  account  of  the  coming  of  the  Magi, — Chaldi^ans 
he  calls  them,  but  evidently  his  account  is  drawn  from 
St.  Matthew, — should  have  dropped  all  mention  of  the 
Star  as  the  motive  of  their  coming  ;  they  were,  he  says, 
moved^  to  come,  but  he  does  not  say  how.     This,  omis- 


*  i^mhrose  (Exp.  in  Luc.  1.  2,  §  45,)  brings  the  three  passages,  Num. 
xxiv.  17 ;  Matt.  ii.  2,  and  Rev.  xxii.  16,  into  relation  with  another:  Ubi 
Christus,  et  Stella  est:  ipse  enim  est  Stella  splendida  ct  matutina.  Sua 
igitur  ipse  luce  se  signat. 

^Eusebius,  H.  E.,  1.  14,  c.  6. 

^  K,v»?^£iT«f.     (Origen,  Con.  Cck,  I.  1 ,  c.  58.) 


MATT.  II.  2.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  39 

sion  may  be  otherwise  explained,  but  it  looks  as  if  his 
inducement  to  keep  back  the  Star  altogether,  was  a  fear 
lest  its  mention  might  put  the  Child  of  Bethlehem  into 
too  close  a  relation  with  a  recognised  Messianic  prophecy 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Such  instances  of  a  bad  con- 
science in  their  controversy  with  Christians  are  suffi- 
ciently frequent  among  the  Jews. 

Whether  this  explanation  of  the  matter  be  the  right 
one  or  not,  no  one,  I  think,  should  finally  reject  it, 
without  having  read  Horsley's  Dissertation,  to  which 
reference  has  been  already  made,  and  weighed  the  ar- 
guments therein  brought  forward.  But  granting  it  mis- 
taken, and  that  these  wise  men  were  not  by  these  an- 
cient oracles  taught  what  was  the  meaning  of  that  glorious 
signal  in  the  heavens,  yet  the  time  being  what  it  was* 
and  they  being  what  they  were,  how  little  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  instruct  them  in  its  meaning.  It 
was  a  time  when,  if  we  may  slightly  alter  the  Apostle's 
words,  "the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waited 
for  the  manifestation  of  the  Son  of  God:"  it  was  the 
world's  great  emptiness  which,  in  the  purposes  of  the 
eternal  Wisdom,  preceded,  as  a  negative  preparation, 
the  great  fulness  that  was  coming;  the  time  of  an  infi- 
nite longing,  that  prepared  men  for  the  infinite  gift. 
Nor  do  we  need  the  testimony  of  the  two  remarkable 
and  often-cited  passages  from  Suetonius  and  from 
Tacitus,  to  prove  that  at  this  time  of  expectation,  as 
well  as  somewhat  later,  the  eyes  of  men  were  espe- 
cially directed  toward  Judaea,  and  toward  Jerusalem, 
unconsciously  felt,  as    it  was,  to   be   the    spiritual  me- 


40  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  2. 

tropolis,  not  of  Judeea  only,  but  of  the  East  and  of  the 
world.' 

And  then,  if  the  times  were  thus  limes  of  a  solemn 
and  breathless  expectation,  these  men  who  came 
were  men  in  whom,  more  than  in  most,  as  their 
coming  and  their  inquiries  show,  the  longing  of  the 
time  had  concentrated  itself;  they  were  eminently 
"men  of  desires."^  And  if  they  were  such,  and  Christ 
the  true  magnet  of  hearts,  drawing  them  to  Himself  by 
an  invisible  but  mighty  potency,  how  little  strange, 
how  natural  rather,  and  easy,  that,  by  guidances  which 
we  do  not  know,  by  little  indications  which,  insufficient 
for  most,  would  yet  have  been  sufficient  for  them,  by 
secret  illuminations  of  their  minds,  which  made  that 
tongue  of  the  heavens  to  speak  a  language  which  they 
could  understand,  they  should  have  found  their  way  to 


*  Only  some  feeling  of  the  kind  would  explain  Pliny's  words  (H. 
N.,  1.  5,  c.  15  :)  Hierosolyma,  bnge  chrissima  urbium  Orientis,  non 
Judaea  modo;  for  in  outward  splendour  it  must  have  fallen  behind 
many. 

^The  striking  phrase,  "man  of  desires,"  belongs  to  the  Vulgate  trans- 
lation of  Daniel,  and  is  given  by  the  angel  to  the  prophet  himself,  (vir 
desideriorum  es:  Dan.  ix.  23.)  The  manner  in  which  the  Magi  were, 
or  were  held  to  be,  these  "  men  of  desires,"  ever  on  the  watch  for  tokens 
and  ghmpses  of  a  divine  character  and  presence  in  men,  comes  remarka- 
bly out  in  the  incident  mentioned  by  Seneca,  of  some  that  happened  to 
be  at  Athens  at  the  time  of  Plato's  decease,  and  who  were  so  impressed 
with  his  having  fulfilled  to  a  day  his  81st  year,— i  e.,  9x9,  the  most 
I  effect  number  of  all — that  they  offered  sacrifices  to  him,  as  to  one  more 
than  man  (Ep.  58:)  Ideo  Magi,  qui  forte  Athenis  erant,  inimolaverunt 
defuncto,  amplioris  fuisse  sortis  quam  humanae  rati,  quia  consummasset 
porfoctisi^imvun  numerum,  queni  nnvcm  nnvies  multipli  ata  romponunt. 


MATT.  II.  3.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  41 

Jerusalem  first,  and  then  to  the  very  place  where  the 
young  Child,  the  fulfiller  of  the  world's  hopes,  was  laid.^ 
Instead,  then,  of -making  difficulties  as  to  how  they 
connected  the  Star  and  the  King  of  the  Jews,  how  they 
found  their  way  so  far  with  nothing  but  that  Star  to 
beckon  them  on,  it  will  be  more  profitable  for  us  to  see 
in  their  finding  of  Christ,  and  in  the  Jews'  failing  to 
find  Him, — while  yet  these  last  had  so  many  helps,  and 
they  so  few, — proofs  and  examples  of  a  truth  to  which 
every  day  a  witness  is  being  borne — namely,  how  liitle 
is  sufficient  to  draw  disposed  and  believing  hearts  to 
Christ,  how  much  is  insufficient  to  draw  them  that  are 
otherwise.  Prophets  speak  and  accomplish  nothing  in 
these :  the  beckoning  of  a  silent  star  is  effectual  with 
those.^ 

But  this  inquiry  of  the  wise  men,  this  word  of  theirs 
about  a  "  King  of  the  Jews,''''  was  to  some  a  word  of 
fear.  The  tidings  of  their  coming  ran  like  an  electric 
shock  through  the  palace  of  the-  usurping  Idumaean. 
Herod  "  ivcis  troubled.''''  When  we  remember  the  recent 
agitations  at  Jerusalem  through  the  refusal  of  the 
Pharisees,  to  the  number  of  six  thousand,  to  take  the 
oath  of  allegiance   to  him,=^  with  their  prophecy  of  the 


1  Augustine  very  beautifully  (Serm.203:)  Illi  magi  primi  ex  gentibus 
Christum  Dorainum  cognoverunt,  et  nondum  ejus  sermone  commoti, 
stellam  sibi  apparentem,  et  pro  infante  Verbo  visibiliter  loquentem,  velut 
linguam  coeli,  secuti  sunt.  Leo  the  Great  (Serm.  30,  c.  1:)  Dedit  ergo 
aspicientibus  intellectum,  qui  preestitit  signum  ;  et  quod  fecit  intelligi,  fecit 
inquiri,  et  se  inveniendum  obtulit  requisitus.    Cf  Serm.  32,  c.  2. 

2  Maximus  (Hom.  5,  de  Epiph. :)  Apud  JudiEos  propheta  loquitur, 
nee  auditur;  apud  gentes  stella  silet  et  suadct. 

^  Josophu!=,  Ant.,  17,  2.  4. 


42  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  3. 

divinely-intended  transfer  of  the  kingdom  from  him 
and  his  race  to  a  favourite  of  their  own,  we  can  easily 
understand  how  much  less  a  thing  wOiild  have  been  suf- 
ficient to  terrify  him  than  this  announcement  of  the  Star 
and  of  the  King  ;^  as  these  will  also  help  to  explain  the 
bloody  precautions  which  presently  he  took,  "j^e  was 
troubled,'^  for  "the  wicked  fear  where  no  fear  is,"  even 
as  in  one  sense  thereSvas  none  even  for  him  :  for  this 
King  that  was  born  was  candidate  for  quite  another 
crown  than  any  which  Herod  would  have  cared  to  wear. 
(Matt,  xxvii.  29.)  But  though  not  exactly  in  the  shape 
that  he  imagined,  in  another  sense  there  was  most  truly 
fear:  the  King  of  righteousness  was  born,  and  the  whole 
kingdom  of  unrighteousness  felt  itself  already  tottering 
to  its  base.'^  And  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  not  Herod 
only"M?as  troubled,'^  hut  ^^all  Jerusalem  with  hirny^ 


*  Mutantem  regna  corpeten. 

^  Augustine  exclaims  on  this  trouble  of  Herod,  and  with  manifest  al- 
lusion to  the  fox-like  character  which  the  Saviour  attributes  to  Herod's 
son,  (Luke  xiii.  32,)  a  character  coming  out  abundantly  in  Herod's  own 
devices  for  bringing  the  young  Child  into  his  power  (Serm.  375:)  JNatus 
est  coeli  Leo,  et  turbata  est  terrena  vulpecula:  and  again,  with  one  of  his 
well-loved  antitheses  (Serm.  206:)  QuiderittribunalJudicantis,  quando 
superbos  reges  cunee  terrebant  Infantisl 

^  Since  'IsposroAuua  is  always  a  neuter  plural  in  the  New  Testament, 
tTx  'hooc.)  and  never  a  fern,  sing,,  (for  Matt.  iii.  5,  cannot  be  justly 
brought  as  an  exception,)  the  Tra^rx  here  must  be  a  constructio  ad  sen- 
sum,  referring  to  a  tio^ic  latent  in  the  city's  appellation.  In  Josephus, 
Strabo,  and  all  other  profane  writers,  is  it  equally  a  neuter  plural ;  for 
the  one  decisive  exception,  Hicrosolijrnam  in  Tacitus,  (Hist.,5. '2,)  which 
is  as  contrary  to  his  own  otherwise  uniform  use  as  to  that  ofoth  ers,  is- 
rejected  from  the  text  by  both  his  latest  editors,  Orelli  and  Ritter.     On 


MATT.  II.  4.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  43 

To  say,  as  some  have  done,  that  he  was  troubled  with 
fear,  and  Jerusalem  with  joy,  is  very  unnatural.  Jeru- 
salem shared  in  his  trouble  and  fear — not,  indeed,  the 
Jerusalem  of  Simeon  and  of  Anna,  and  of  the  little 
company  that  watched  and  Waited  for  the  consolation  of 
Israel ;  (Luke  ii.  25 — 38 :)  they  lifted  up  their  heads  ;  but 
the  Jerusalem  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  the  misusers 
of  spiritual,  as  Herod  of  worldly,  powers.  True  it  is 
that  these  may  presently  have  forgotten  their  fears,  and 
persuaded  themselves  that  it  was  but  a  false  alarm  after 
all;  yet  for  a  moment  they,  too,  were  troubled;  forlitde 
as  they  had  in  common  with  Herod,  yet  they  had  this 
in  common — namely,  an  equal  enmity  to  the  truth,  an 
equal  interest  in  the  upholding  of  that  kingdom  of  un- 
righteousness and  wrong,  which  they  all  felt  must  go  to 
the  ground  so  soon  as  the  kingdom  of  this  King  of  truth 
was  set  up.     (Isai.  xxxii.  1 — 8;  Ps.  Ixxii.) 

The  question  which  Herod  lays  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
*^Where  Christ  should  be  horn,^^  shows  plainly  that, 
strange  as  probably  he  was  to  the  Scriptures  of  the  pro- 
phets, he  yet  understood  this  much,  that  "  ChrisC  and 


the  word  itself,  and  its  relation  to  the  more  Hebrew  ^hqova-cLxrifx,  the 
former  observes  :  Hac  forma  ad  vocem  /spec  a  Grsecis  detorta,  ut  sig- 
nificaret  "urbs  sacra  vel  templum  Solymorum,"  [Tac.  Hist.  5.  2,]  pri- 
mus usus  esse  videtur  Hecataeus  Abderita  apud  Joseph.  Con.  Ap.  1. 
22;  reperitur  etiam  in  libro  Tobiae  et  secundo  Maccabaeorum;  apud  cite- 
ros  LXX.  est  ^liQov7uxy]u.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  more  Greek 
colouring  of  St  John's  Gospel,  and  the  more  Hebrew  of  his  Apocalypse^ 
that  written  more  ev  roi,  this  iv  nviUfx-aTi,  that  in  the  Gospel  he  should 
use  always  the  Greek  form,  in  the  Apocalypse  always  the  ilebrew. 
(See  Bengels  Gnomon,  in  Apoc.  21 .  2.) 


44  THE  STAR  OP  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  5,  6. 

'^  King  of  the  Jew s^^  were  equivalent  and  convertible 
terms.  "  »dnd  they  said  unto  him,  In  Bethlehem  of  Ju- 
daea, for  thus  it  is  written  by  the  prophet.  And  thou 
Bethlehem,  in  the  land  of  Juda,  art  not  the  least  a7nong 
the  princes  of  Juda;  for  out  of  thee  shall  come  a  Gover- 
nor, that  shcdl  rule  my  people  Israel. ^^  On  comparing 
this  prophecy,  as  cited  here,  with  the  original  text  of 
Micah,  there  appears  at  first  sight  more  than  one  re- 
markable discrepancy  between  the  two.  In  the  pro- 
phecy as  first  delivered,  Bethlehem  is  addressed  as  "  lit- 
tle among  the  thousands  of  Judah ;"  in  Matthew,  as 
"no^  the  least  among  the  princes  of  Juda:'"'  nor  is  Je- 
rome's solution,  that  we  have  here  an  intentional  inac- 
curacy on  the  part  of  St.  Matthew,  although  not  his  own, 
but  that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  which  he  yet  re- 
tains, thus  silently  taxing  them  with  their  negligent  hand- 
ling of  Scripture,  worthy  of  any  acceptation.  The  ex- 
planation must  be  sought  elsewhere. 

On  the  substitution  of  "jonnces"  for  "thousands," 
there  will  be  something  presently  to  say;  but  passing 
that  by  for  the  present,  there  certainly  at  first  seems  more 
than  a  variation,  even  a  contradiction,  between  the  "litde" 
of  the  prophet,  and  the  ^'■not  the  least''^  of  the  Evangelist. 
But,  in  truth,  the  latter  does  but  blend  into  a  single  phrase 
two  statements  which  the  former  had  made.  Small  and 
not  small,  is  what  the  prophet,  too,  would  say;  seeming 
little,  and  yet  being  great.  If  we  take  in  his  whole  state- 
ment in  this  second  verse,  it  will  be  seen  that  he  is  con- 
trasting the  outward  insignificance  of  Bethlehem  with  the 
mighty  events  which  should  there  occur,  and  which  should 
give  it  a  place  in  the  world's  history,  and  in  the  Church's 


MATT.  II.  5,  6.]        THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  45 

affections,  for  ever.  "Thou  art  small,  and  yet  not 
small ;  for  this  thy  smallness  shall  not  hinder,  but 
that  He  shall  go  forth  from  thee,  whose  goings  forth 
have  been  also  from  of  old,  from  everlasting."  The 
Evangelist,  overleaping  the  steps  of  the  process  by 
which  the  prophet  had  reached  his  result,  grasps  at,  and 
makes  that  final  result  his  own — namely,  that  this  little 
should  yet  not  be  little;  since  from  it,  small  as  it  appeared, 
there  should  yet  go  forth  a  Prince,'  no  mere  head  of 
a  family  or  a  tribe,  but  He  that  should  feed,  (for  I  see 
not  why  we  should  have  dropped  this  word,)  the  whole 
Israel  of  God.  -^ 

But  we  have  also  to  account  for  a  substitution  of 
^^princes^^  in  St.  Matthew,  for  the  "  thousands"  of  Micah. 
This  will  best  be  done  by  considering,  first,  what  the 


1  There  is  so  evident  an  intention  on  the  part  of  St  Matthew  to  al- 
lude in  the  'tjyovjuivog  to  the  tjYi/movtg  who  have  just  gone  before,  the 
word  is  so  plainly  chosen  for  the  sake  of  its  like  sound  and  like  deriva- 
tion, (it  was  ag/cov  in  the  Septuagint,)  that  it  would  have  been  better, 
1  think,  if  our  translators  hud  again  used  "  Prince"  instead  of  ''Governor." 
Plainly,  if  they  could  have  found  two  slightly  differing  words  of  the 
same  stem,  this  would  have  been  best  of  all.  "  Prince  is  further  prefera- 
ble to"  Goz;emor,"  inasmuch  as  thatexT^ressesleadership,  (in the  Vulgate, 
dux;  Tindal,  Cranmer,  the  Geneva,  captain)  and  so  gives  back  the 
thought  of  the  originals  in  a  way  that  this  does  not.  This  is  the  only 
place  in  the  New  Testament  where  rjYov/usrog  is  used  of  our  Lord.  It 
is  once  beside  used  in  the  same  absolute  sense — of  Joseph,  a  ruler  in 
Egypt,  (Acts  vii.  10,)  and  the  church  rulers  are  Tj-yovjusvoi,  Heb.  xiii. 
ter.  In  the  later  Greek  of  Herodian,  Polybius,  Diodorus  Siculus,  it  is 
common  enough  for  governors  of  provinces,  captains  in  war;  so  also  in 
the  Septuagint,  being  especially  frequent  in  the  son  of  Sirach,  ix.  17; 
X.2. 


46  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.[mATT.  II.  5.  G. 

"thousands"  were.  It  may, I  think,  certainly  be  shown 
that  they  were  that  intermediate  division  betv^'*en  the 
tribe  and  the  household  ;  which  goes  more  commonly, 
in  the  historic  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  by  the  name 
of  the  "  family."  We  observe  that  the  twelve  tribes  of 
which  the  Jewish  nation  consisted,  were  made  up  each 
of  a  certain  number  of  "  families,"  these  "  families"  be- 
ing again  composed  of  a  certain  number  of  "  households." 
The  two  passages  w^hich  are  most  distinct  upon  this  mat- 
ter, and  which  throw  most  light  on  it,  are  Josh.  vii.  14 
— 18;  and  1  Sam.  x.  19—21.'  In  the  last  of  these 
passages  the  "families"  of  ver.  21,  are  plainly  the  "thou- 
sands" of  ver.  19;  and  the  words  are  interchangeably 
used.  The  "  thousand,'  there  is  every  reason  to  believe, 
originally  consisted,  like  the  German  and  Anglo-Saxon 
"hundred,"  of  a  certain  number  of  the  "households;" 
and,  as  the  word  indicates,  of  a  thousand  households  or 
heads  of  families,  more  or  fewer,  grouped  together;  doubt- 
less, according  to  considerations  more  or  less  distinct  of 
kindred  and  of  common  descent :  the  territorial  divisions, 
(not  of  the  tribes,  but  of  these  subdivisions  within  the 
tribes,)  being  secondary  to,  and  resting  on,  the  personal. 
But,  in  the  nature  of  things,  this  secondary  would  come 
by  degrees  to  be  the  primary;  for  as  it  would  be  mani- 
festly impossible  perpetually  to  readjust  the  territorial 


*  To  avoid  confusion,  it  may  just  be  needful  to  observe,  that  the 
"  family"  in  tliese  and  similar  passages  does  not  in  the  least  conespond 
to  the  Latin /amiVm,  which  would  rather  represent  tlie  "household," 
but  much  more  nearly  to  the  Roman  gens,  or  to  one  of  the  Athenian 


MATT.  II.  5,  6.]         THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  47 

divisions,  so  that  each  of  them  should  always  contain  the 
same  number  of  households  as  at  the  first,  these  would 
be  left  as  they  were  ;  while  the  number  of  households 
they  contained  might  become  many  fewer  or  many  more 
than  the  name  implied;  and  thus  there  could  be  "little" 
thousands,  as  Bethlehem,  or  great  ones.  Some  would  rise, 
others  fall,  in  importance.  Thus  Gideon,  when  he  would 
fain  put  back  the  angel's  summons  that  he  should  go  and 
deliver  Israel,  speaks  of  his  "family,"  {xi'^'^a,?^  LXX.,) 
which  he  entirely  distinguishes  from  his  "  father's  house  " 
as  "poor  in  Manasseh."  (Judg,  vi.  15.)  Exactly  in 
the  same  way,  the  Anglo-Saxon  "hundreds"  gradually 
came  to  embrace,  some  fewer,  some  a  far  greater  number 
of  households,  than  the  name  implied;  and  the  name  it- 
self, like  the  smaller  one  of  the  tithing,  ended  with  pos- 
sessing, as  it  does  now,  a  merely  local  significance.  We 
have  the  "thousand"  exactly  used  in  the  sense  of  a  cer- 
tain district,  1  Sam.  xxiii.  23.  But  as  there  were  phy- 
larchs,  or  heads  of  tribes,  so  there  were  chiliarchs,  or 
heads  of  thousands.  (Exod.  xviii.  25.)  These  would 
represent  their  "thousands  ;"  and  St.  Matthew  here  be- 
holds the  "  thousands"  of  which  Micah  spoke,  as  thus 
represented  or  gathered  up  in  these  '^princes.'^  Ttie 
prince  whose  thousand  was  least  in  importance  would  be 
himself  least,  for  all  his  importance,  as  prince,  would  be 
derived  from  it. 

The  "thousand,"  then,  of  which  Bethlehem  was  the 
chief  town,  and  that  which  gave  to  the  entire  thousand 
its  name,  was  "little  among  the  thousands  of  Judah." 
All  history  confirms  the  statement.  Bethlehem  was  in 
early  times  a  place  of  so  small  account,  that  it  is  omitted 


48  THESTAROFTHE  WISE  MEN.         [mATT.  II.  5,  C. 

in  the  long  catalogue  of  the  cities  of  .Tudah,  Josh.  xv.  21 
—62.^  Even  as  "the  city  of  David,"  (Luke  ii.  11 ;  1 
Sam.  xvi.  1,)  the  birth-place  of  the  best  and  greatest  of 
Israel's  kings,  it  yet  acquired  no  political  importance. 
Rehoboam,  indeed,  fortified  it  and  made  it  one  of  his 
cities  of  defence  after  the  division  of  the  kingdoms. 
(2  Chron.  ii.  6.)  Yet  in  Micah's  time  it  was,  as  we  see, 
of  no  account,  and  at  John  vii.  42,  it  is  a  xw^jy,  and  not 
a  rto^tj,  with  which  title,  however,  Josephus  sometimes 
honours  it,  though  elsewhere  he  calls  it  a  x^9^^v.^  It 
is  often  called  Belhlehem-Judah,  as  at  Judg.  xvii.  7,  8 ; 
1  Sam.  xvii.  J  2,  and  in  St.  Matthew's  citation  of  Micah, 
to  distinguish  it  from  another  Bethlehem  in  the  tribe  of 
Zebulon.  (Josh.  xxix.  15.)  The  word  stands  here  as  a 
substitute  for  the  Ephratah  of  Micah,  v.  2,  which  served 
the  same  purpose  of  designating  more  closely  the  Beth- 
lehem to  which  the  prophecy  referred  and  the  promise 
was  made,  (Gen.  xxxv.  19;  1  Sam.  xvii.  12,)  but  which 
name  had  now  probably  become  obsolete.  There  was, 
then,  an  evident  motive  for  the  substitution  of  "/w(/«" 
for  Ephratah,  bringing  out,  as  that  does  more  distinctly, 
and  even  to  those  unacquainted  with  the  antiquities  of 
the  land,  that  in  this  birth  another  prophecy  and  another 
just  expectation  of  those  that  waited  for  the  Messiah 
was  fulfilled,  namely,  that  He  should  be  born  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,    (Gen.   xlix.    10,)    a   circumstance   on 


*  In  the  Septuagint,  indeed,  (cod.  Alexaiid.)  is  inserted  after  v.  GO, 
with  some  other  omitted  places. 
^  Antt,  1 ,  5,  c.  '2,  §  a 


]^fiA^'^^^:^.., 


MATT.  II.  5,  6.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  49 

which  we  find  the  sacred  writers  afterwards  laying  stress. 
(Heb.  vii.  14;  Rev.  v.  5.) 

And  now,  when  this  prophecy  found  its  accomplish- 
ment at  length,  Bethlehem  indeed  became  that  which 
its  name  had  promised  from  the  first,  "the  house  of 
bread ;"^  for  He  who  had  been  always  the  bread  of 
angels,  and  who,  in  his  Incarnation,  became  also  the 
bread  of  men,  found  his  earliest  earthly  habitation 
there.  Now  was  Ephratah  truly  the  "fruit-bearing 
field,"  for  He  that  was  the  Branch  of  righteousness, 
(Jer.  xxxiii.  15,)  the  Man  whose  name  was  The  Branch, 
(Zech.  vi.  12,)  had  sprung  up  within  its.  borders. 
Hitherto  these  names  had  but  indicated  the  fulness  of 
earthly  blessing,  the  rich  abundance  of  the  fruits  of  the 
field  which  that  region  yielded;  but  now  their  deeper 
meaning  comes  out.  All  that  this  double  appellation 
(the  nomen  et  omen)  had  silently  prophesied  so  long, 
was  realized  at  length.  We  have  too  many  of  these 
significant  names,  Golgotha,  and  Cedron,  and  Geth- 
semane,  and  others,  to  have  the  right  to  suppose  them 
merely  accidental. 

From  this  answer  of  the  Sanhedrim,  which  at  once 
designates  Bethlehem  as  the  place  where  Christ  should 
be  born,  it  is  plain  that  at  that  time  the  Jews  had  no 
question  concerning  the  application  of  the  prophecy  of 
Micah  to  the  Messiah  ;  as  neither  did  they  doubt  that 
its  purpose  was  to  point  out  the  place  of  his  birth.  It 
would  have  been  indeed  strange,  when  every  thing  else 


'  DnS  IT'S  =  domus  panis.    Tirinus:  Ita  coctus  est  panis  angelorum, 
ut  etiam  hominum  usibus  fieret  accommodus. 

4 


50  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  ME^^     [matt.  II.  5,G. 

was  so  definite,  the  tribe  from  which  he  should  spring; 
(Gen.  xHx.  10;)  and  not  the  tribe  only,  but  the  family; 
(2  Sara,  xxiii.  5  ;)  the  time  of  his  appearing ;  (Dan.  ix. 
26;)  the  region  which  should  first  rejoice  in  the  light 
of  his  presence;  (Isai.  ix.  1 — 2;  cf.  Matt.  iv.  13;)  and 
so  much  besides,  that  there]  should  have  been  here  a 
gap,  and  no  intimation  given  of  the  place  of  his  birth. 
But  that  Christ  should  be  born  at  Bethlehem  was 
among  the  Jews  at  this  time,  (John  vii.  42,)  and  long 
after,  an  undoubted  article  of  fiith.  As  yet  they  had 
no  motive  to  do  violence  to  the  plain  meaning  and 
intention  of  their  own  Scriptures  which  so  afiirmed. 
Subsequently  it  was  otherwise.  The  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  its 
non-fulfilment  in  any  other  who  laid  claim  to  be  the 
Messiah,  was  so  plain,  that  they  were  tempted  to  betake 
themselves  to  various  shifts  for  evading  the  force  of  the 
argument,  which  the  Christians  derived  from  the  meeting 
of  this  and  all  other  of  the  fore-announced  signs  and 
tokens  of  tlie  Messiah  in  his  person,  whom  they  recog- 
nised as  such,  with  their  absence  from  every  one  beside. 
It  is  true  that  they  could  not  all  at  once  shift  theirground, 
and  take  up  a  new  position  ;  that  the  earlier  Rabbis  were 
obliged  to  content  themselves  with  some  such  evasion,  as 
that  Messiah  had  indeed  been  born  at  Bethlehem;  but 
on  account  of  the  sins  of  Israel  had  been  again  with- 
drawn from  the  sight  of  men.  Yet  that  their  eyes  still 
turned  in  expectation  toward  this  city,  as  that  from  w^hich 
the  Governor  of  Israel  should  come  forth,  is  plain  from 
the  edict  of  Adrian,  published  after  the  insurrection  of 


MATT.  II.  5,  6.]        THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  51 

Barchochab,  which  forbade  any  Jew  to  reside  at  Jerusa- 
lem or  Bethlehem.'^ 

The  later  Jewish  Rabbis  had  another  way  of  dealing 
with  this  prophecy.  Neither  did  they  deny  that  the 
words  of  Micah  had  reference  to  Messiah,  and  the  place 
of  his  birth  ;  (for  Chrysostom's  assertion  that  some  Jews 
explained  these  words  as  having  been  fulfilled  in  Zerub- 
babel,  seems  probably  a  mistake  of  liis :  a  Christian  in- 
terpreter, Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  the  anticipator  in  so 
much  of  the  modern  rationalism,  had  the  honour  of  first 
proposing  this  interpretation;)  but  they  afhrmed  that  it 
referred  only  mediatehj  to  Messiah's  birth  place,  and 
had  its  fulfilment,  inasmuch  as  David,  the  progenitor  of 
Christ,  was  born  at  Bethlehem.'^  Christ,  they  said,  was 
born  there,  when  David  was.  But,  indeed,  this  helpless 
embarrassment  of  the  Jews  in  regard  of  this  and  eacli 
other  of  the  prophecies  relating  to  the  Messiah,  this  inabi- 
lity of  theirs  to  make  any  thing  of  them,  justifies  abundantly 
the  image  which  has  likened  Old  Testament  prophecy 
and  New  Testament  fulfihnent  to  the  lower  and  upper 
millstones,  fitting  into  one  another,  and  which  between 
them  grind  the  bread-corn.  But  wliat  so  useless  as  one 
of  these  stones  apart  from  the  other?  The  Jews  in  their 
refusal  to  accept  the  New  Testament  fulfilment,  are  as 
those  who  should  possess  only  one  of  these  millstones, 


*  To  this  edict  Tertullian  alludes  in  his  argument  with  the  Jew,  Adv. 
Jud.,  c.  13;  and  see  also  Schoettgen's  Hor.  Heb.,  v.  2.  pp.  527 — 531. 

**  Huet  (Dem.  Evang.  p.  393)  remarks  well  on  this  subterfuge  of 
theirs  :  Id  si  accipimus,  jam  ergo  multiplex  nobis  patria  erit,totque  na- 
tales  terras  numerabimus,  quot  Icci  majoribus  nostris  ortuni  dcderunt. 


52  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.         [mATT.  II.  5,  6. 

that  is,  the  lower ;  but  who,  having  cast  aside  the  other, 
can  make  no  use  of  the  one  which  they  retain.  They 
are  utterly  unable  to  prepare  by  its  aid  food  for  their 
souls,  or  to  draw  wholesome  nutriment  from  that  word 
of  the  promise  which  is  theirs  equally  as  ours.  Or  they 
might  be  likened,  as  indeed  they  have  been,  to  the  fore- 
most of  the  twain  that  bare  between  them,  two  upon  a 
staff,  the  one  cluster  of  grapes  from  the  promised  land. 
They  bear  it,  indeed,  but^do  not  see  it,  for  they  have  their 
back  turned  to  it,  and  not,  as  the  Christians  who  follow 
after,  the  face.     (Num.  xiii.  23.) 

It  has  been  often,  too,  remarked  what  a  prophetic  sign 
and  symbol  of  the  function  of  the  Jews  in  all  after  ages 
we  have  here,  in  these  foremost  men  of  the  nation,  who 
show  to  Gentile  seekers  the  way  which  will  lead  them 
to  Christ,  while  they  do  not  care  to  tread  it  themselves ; 
for  we  hear  of  none  of  the  chief  priests  and  scribes  join- 
ing themselves  to  this  company  to  offer  with  them  the 
homage,  which,  due  from  all  men  to  Israel's  King,  was 
yet  eminently  due  from  those  of  his  own  people;  but  on 
the  contrary,  they  suffer  them  to  depart  alone.  What  a 
prophecy,  it  has  been  well  observed,  is  here  of  what  the 
Jewish  nation  ever  since  have  been ;  the  near,  and  yet 
prevented  and  outrun  by  those  that  were  far  off;  bearers 
of  a  record  and  a  testimony,  from  which  not  they,  but 
others  live ;  continual  witnesses  against  themselves ; 
guiding  inquirers  to  Christ,  and  yet  never  finding  the 
way  to  Him  themselves  ;  faithful  guardians  of  the  letter 
of  those  Scriptures,  which  are  evermore  their  own  con- 
demnation; pointing  others  to  the  fountain  of  life,  and 


MATT.  II.  7,8.]       THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  53 

all  ihe  while  themselves  perishing  with  thirst  in  the  wil- 
derness.^ 

But  now,  armed  with  this  knowledge,  the  evil  king 
^'privily  called  the  icise  men,^^  not  as  though  by  this 
privy  summons  he  would  keep  secret  the  fact  of  their 
coming,  for  that  was  already  notorious,  (ver.  2,)  but  pro- 
bably desirous  to  conceal  the  importance  which  he 
attached  to  it,  and  to  the  tidings  which  they  brought. 
Having  ^Hnquired  of  them  diligently,'''' i\oi  when  this  King 
was  born,  for  that  lay  not  with  any  certainty  within  the 
sphere  of  their  knowledge,  but  '^what  time  the  Star  ap- 
peared, he  sent  them  to  Bethlehem  :^^  with  that  word 
which  sheltered  the  wickedest  purpose  under  the  disguise 
of  the  holiest;  "  Go,  and  search  diligently  for  the  young 
Child,  and  when  ye  have  found  Him,  bring  me  word 
again,  that  1  may  come  and  worship  him  cdso.^^ 

They  do  not  seem  to  have  made  Herod  any  promise  of 
return,  which,  of  course,  even  if  they  had,  would  not  have 
bound  them,  so  soon  as  they  were  warned  with  what 
purpose  it  had  been  drawn  from  them.  All  that  we  are 
told  is,  that  ^^when  they  had  heard  the  king,  they  depart- 
ed.''^ But  not  altogether  unaccompanied:  for  "/o/  the 
Star  which  they  saw  in  the  east  went  before  them,  till  it 
came  and  stood  over'''' — not  the  house,  for  nothing  of  the 


'■  Augustine  (Serm.  199:)  Nunc  vero  aliis  demonstrate  vitae  fonte, 
ipsi  sunt  mortui  siccitate.  Facti  sunt  eis  tanquam  lapides  ad  milliaria; 
viatoribus  ambulantibus  aliquid  ostenderunt,  sed  ipsi  stolidi  atque  immo- 
biles  permanserunt.  And  again:  Illi  portant  codices,  nos  de  codicibus 
vivimus.  And  Aquinas:  Similes  facti  sunt  fabris  arcsB  Noe;  qui  aliis 
ubi  evaderent,  praestiterunt,  et  ipsi  diluvio  perierunt. 


54  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  9. 

kind  is  said,  but — "  where  the  young  Child  w as, ''^^  That 
we  have  here  optical  and  not  astronomical  notices,  I  think 
is  plain ;  that  this  Star  also  served  them  now  for  quite 
another,  and  a  far  higher  purpose,  than  that  of  merely- 
showing  to  them  their  way,  precious  witness  as  it  was  to 
them  still,  that  they  were  on  the  right  way.  Indeed,  we 
shall  miss  the  right  point  of  view  if  we  contemplate  the 
Star  through  any  part  of  their  journey  so  much  in  the 
light  of  a  topographical  as  of  a  religious  signal  and 
guide. 

But  how  exactly  shall  we  understand  this  ninth  verse 
in  connexion  with  that  which  follows  ?  "  When  they  saw 
the   Star,  they  rejoiced  with  exceeding  great  joyP'2. 


1  There  are  those  who  make  a  great  difficulty  and  outcry  about  this 
of  the  Star  standing  over  the  place  where  the  young  Child  was.  They 
begin  to  calculate  at  how  great  a  distance  even  the  nearest  stars  are  from 
the  earth,  and  how  impossible  it  is  that  a  star  should  designate  some 
particular  locality  on  earth;  and  hence  they  conclude  that  this  as  an  evi- 
dently apocryphal  element  in  the  narration,  may  well  throw  suspicion 
over  the  whole.  Yet  the  same  persons  will  read  in  Josephus,  among 
the  portents  which  preceded  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  of  the  comet 
which  slood  wtr  the  city,  (B.  J.,  1.  6,  c.  5,  §  3,  ir-vvi  '■vm^  ■ii]y  ttoXiv 
— the  same  word  as  here,)  and  make  no  difficulties  about  it.  But  this 
denying  to  Holy  Scripture  the  liberty  which  is  freely  accorded  to  every 
other  book,  of  speaking  phenomenally  when  it  pleases,  is  a  very  ordinary 
engine  of  assault  upon  it.  When  it  serves  their  turn,  the  adversaries 
are  suddenly  taken  with  a  rigour  of  affected  accuracy,  which  almost  no 
statement  is  literal  enough  to  satisfy.  It  was  so  also  of  old,  as  we  see 
from  Augustine's  indignant  replies,  in  more  places  than  one,  to  cavillers 
of  the  same  order.     (Con.  Faust.,  1.  33,  c.  7,  8.) 

"*  'E/a.Qtj^ccv  x^i^^y  according  to  the  well  known  Hebraism,  which,  in- 
deed, finds  its  analogies  in  almost  every  tongue.  Juvencus  reproduces 
it  in  his  versified  nanative  of  the  Lord's  life: 


MATT.  II.  9,  10.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  55 

Had   they  lost  sight  of  the   Star  for  a  season, — for  the 
season,  that  is,  of  their  stay  in   the  city,  so  that  they 
greatly  rejoiced  when  they  recognised  it  anew  ?'     Thus 
the  passage  has  been  understood  by  many;  and  of  these 
some  have  found  a  mystical  significance  in  this,  its  disap- 
pearance, and  have  said,  When  they  chose  to  walk  in  the 
light  of  men,  they  lost  the  light  of  heaven.^      Others 
have  yet  further  extended  the  period  during  which  the 
Star  had  been  hidden  from  them,  have  supposed  that  they 
had  but  seen  it  at  their  first  setting  forth,  in  its  rising ; 
that  it  then  had  but  pointed  them  the  way,  and,  this  done, 
disappeared,  till  now  they  beheld  it  anew  at  the  end  of 
their  journey,  as  once  they  had  beheld  it  at  the  begin- 
ning.    Or  are  we  merely  to  understand,  as  some  suggest, 
that  the  day  had  been  consumed  in  the  great  city,  in 
their  inquiries  there  after  Him  whom  they  were  seeking, 
in  their  interview  with  Herod,  and  that  now,  at  evening, 
as  those  who  would  fain  make  their  journey  by  night, 
they  set  forth  once  more,  and  delightedly  beheld  the  hea- 
venly guide,  that  had  guided  them  so  far,  still  marshall- 
ing their  path, — with   the   more  delight  since,  perhaps, 
they  might  have  concluded  that,  having  led  them  so  far, 
and  having  put  them  in  relation  with  those  who  could 


Gaudia  magna  magi  gaudent,  sidusque  salutant. 
Compare  1  Kin.  i.  40 ;  Jer.  xxxviii.  3  ;  LXX.  (aYanria-tv  akuviov  rjyet' 
nrjiTA  ere;)  1  Tim.  i.  18;  Luke  ii.  9;  (B<po0r}&ij(Tav  <^o^ov,)  and  Jon. 
iv.  6.  where  these  very  words  of  the  text  occur. 

*  Thus  Euthymius :  'S2s  EvQOvtsi  tov  axpivdeffT^'-Tov  oSriyov. 

^  So  Bernard :  Ut  qui  humanura  quserebant  consilium,  divinum  arait- 
terent  ducem. 


56  thestarofthe  WISE  MEN.  [matt.  11.  9,  10, 

give  them  those  certain  notices  which  now  they  had,  they 
should  not  see  it  any  more. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  neither  of  these  explana- 
tions exactly  represents  the  meaning  of  the  Evangelist, 
which  Maldonatus  has  more  successfully  caught.  He 
bids  us  to  notice  that  these  words,  "  When  they  saw  the 
Star,  they  rejoiced  with  exceeding  great  joy j^'  immedi- 
ately follow  his  statement  that  "i7  came  and  stood  over 
where  the  young  Child  was,^^  which  they  must  needs  in 
a  natural  order  have  preceded,  if  either  of  the  meanings 
above  suggested  had  been  the  right  one.  But  as  they 
now  stand,  they  express  the  joy  of  those  Eastern  seers,  not 
at  the  mere  seeing  of  the  star,  which  they  had  often  seen 
before,  but  at  seeing  it  stand  over  where  the  young  Child 
was,  having  at  length  fulfilled  its  mission,  and  having 
brought  them  there  where  they  would  be.  It  is  the  joy 
of  men  that  have  the  haven  in  sight;  that  are  just  about 
to  grasp  the  good  expected  so  long.^ 

St.  Matthew,  it  will  be  observed,  speaks  of  the  Magi 
as  having  come  "  into  the  house.^^  Was  this  the  same 
place  where  the  Child  Jesus  had  been  born  ?  Did  they 
find  the  Lord  of  Glory  still  in  that  stable,  or  cave,  or 
whatever  place  it  might  have  been,  where  the  manger 
had  served  for  his  earliest  resting  place  on  earth,  (Luke 
ii.  7,)  and  where  the  shepherds  had  found  Him  laid  ?  It 
may  have  been  so  ;  it  is  most  commonly  taken  for  granted 

'  Maldonatus :  Nee  enim  significat,  ut  ego  quidem  arbitror,  Evange- 
lista  Magos  aspectu  stellse,  quae  paulo  ante  evanuisse  videbatur,  lastos 
fuisse;  sed  eos  gavisos  fuisse  videntes  stellam,  (sicut  proxime  dixerat,) 
stantem  supra  ubi  erat  puer.  Laetantur  enim  non  quod  stellam  viderint, 
quamsaepe  jam  viderant;  sed  quod  Christum  quem  quaerebant  invenerant. 


MATT.  II.  11.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  57 

that  it  was  so,  in  homiletic  allusions,  as  in  Christian 
art;  and  certainly  there  is  nothing  in  that  word  " /Ae 
/iowse"  to  compel  us  to  any  other  conclusion:  since  it 
needed  not  for  St.  Matthew,  who  wrote  with  so  different 
an  object  from  St.  Luke,  from  a  theocratic,  as  St.  Luke 
from  an  ethical,  point  of  view,  to  make  prominent,  as  he 
has  done  the  stable  or  the  inn.  Li  St.  Luke's  Gospel, 
which  was,  more  than  any  other,  a  gospel  for  the  poor, 
for  those  whom  the  proud  and  prosperous  world  had 
slighted  and  despised,  this  consolation,  this  gleam  of 
glory  lighting  up  henceforth  each  lowly  shed,  each  hum- 
blest habitation  of  the  servants  of  God,  who,  so  lodged, 
did  but  share  a  common  lot  with  their  Lord,  could  not 
well  have  been  omitted.  But  St.  Matthew  had  quite 
another  purpose  in  view^:  his  was  to  record  the  early 
dignities  of  the  royal  Child,  who  even  in  his  cradle  received 
the  ambassadors  of  the  nations,  who  yet  "  an  infant  of 
days"  was  honoured,  as  with  the  love  and  homage  of 
the  good,  so  also  with  the  deadly  hatred  and  enmity  of 
the  wicked.  Yet  granting  that  the  words,  "  the  house,^^ 
do  not  oblige  us  to  suppose  any  other  place,  still  how 
very  probably  it  may  have  been  some  other.  Even  as- 
suming this  visit  to  have  found  place  so  early  as  the 
twelfth  day  after  the  Nativity,  how  easily  might  Joseph 
and  the  Blessed  Virgin,  in  reverence  for  their  awful  charge, 
have  by  that  day  shifted  their  habitation  for  some  lowly, 
yet  not  so  altogether  misbeseeming  a  place. 

But  we  may  leave  this  for  a  somewhat  more  impor- 
tant consideration.  "  When  they  were  come  into  the 
house,  they  saw  the  young  Child  with  Mary  his  mother'^ 
— Joseph  is  kept  purposely  in  the  background — "«no? 


58  THE  STAR  OF  THE   WISE  MEN.    [maTT.  II.   II. 

fell  down  and  worshipped  Himy  It  is,  indeed,  an  inte- 
resting question,  and  dogmatically  not  unimportant,  how 
much  is  implied  in  this  ♦'  worship'^  which,  the  Evangelist 
tells  us,  the  wise  men  addressed  to  the  infant  Saviour? 
There  are  those  who  see  in  it  no  more  than  civil  homage, 
as  to  an  earthly  king;  who  again  may  be  divided  into 
two  classes,  such  as  conceive  that  to  Him  no  greater 
honour  competed,  and  therefore  no  greater  would  have 
been  paid  by  these  divinely  enlightened  sages,  Photinian 
and  other  heretics ; — and  such  as,  like  Erasmus,  not  at 
all  denying  that  such  higher  honours  were  rightly  his  due, 
yet  do  not  find  the  mention  or  ascription  of  them  here. 
I  cannot  doubt  that  these  are  as  much  in  error  as  those, 
although  ^their  error  springs  not  from  any  such  deadly 
root.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  word  which  St.  Matthew 
uses  began  with  a  merely  civil,  and  only  by  degrees  ac- 
quired a  religious,  significance;^  that  at  first  it  meant  no 
more  than  the  profoundly  respectful  salutation  of  the  in- 
ferior to  his  superior  ;^  that  even  in  the  Septuagint,  as  at 
Gen.  xxiii.  7,  12;  xxvii.  29;  and  perhaps  xlvii.  31,  it  is 
sometimes  used  in  the  lower  sense  in  which  the  word  to 
worship  is  used  in  our  Marriage  Service,  to  acknowledge 
by  an  outward  gesture  or  an  inner  tribute  of  respect  the 
worship  or  dignity  of  another ;  as  it  was  in  Wiclif's 
Bible,  "  worship  thy  father  and  thy  mother ;"  and  even 


*■  n^oa-xxiviiv,  as  in  Latin,  adorare.  (See  Doderlein's  Synonyme,  v. 
2,  p.  188.) 

^  Herodotus,  1.  134,  to  which  Passow  refers,  does  not  bear  out  his 
assertion  that  it  is  ever  used  as  to  salute  merely  with  the  hand  on  the 
mouth,  tL7naLi7(iAi. 


MATT.  II.  11.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  59 

in  our  present  version,  "  Then  shalt  thou  have  worship 
in  the  presence  of  them  that  sit  at  meat  with  thee." 
(Luke  xiv.  10.) 

Yet  in  classical  Greek  the  word  had  come  very  gene- 
rally to  be  used  in  its  religious  sense  ;  it  is  so,  remark- 
ably often,  in  Sophocles ;  nor,  among  all  the  other  pas- 
sages where  the  word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  can 
there  be  adduced  a  single  one  in  which  it  has  other  than 
a  religious  significance,  in  which  it  does  not,  at  the  least, 
imply  the  recognition  of  a  divine  character  and  presence 
in  him  to  whom  this  homage  is  paid;  and  oftentimes 
much  more  than  this,  even  the  adoration  due  only  to  the 
God  of  gods,  and  Lord  of  lords.  There  are  two  pas- 
sages very  decisive  of  the  sense  in  which  the  sacred  writers 
of  the  New  Testament  used  the  word,  and  of  the  light  in 
which  they  regarded  the  homage  which  was  expressed 
by  it.  The  first  is  Acts  x.  25,  26,  where  Peter  refuses 
to  accept  this  worship  from  Cornelius ;  for  "  I  myself 
also  am  a  man."  The  second  is  Rev.  xxii.  8,  9,  where 
in  like  manner  the  angel  forbids  the  offering  of  the  wor- 
ship to  himself:  "See  thou  do  it  not;  for  I  am  thy  fel- 
low-servant: .  .  .  worship  God."  The  only  passage 
which  seems  to  contradict  this  universal  rule  of  the  word's 
use  is  Matt,  xviii.  26,  where  the  servant  is  said  to  have 
fallen  down  and  "  worshipped"  his  lord.  But  if  we  as- 
sume, as  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  do,  that  the  scene  of 
this  parable  is  the  East — for  where  else  should  we  find 
defaulters  in  ten  thousand  talents  ? — and  remember  that 
this  lord  whom  the  servant  "worshipped"  was  also  his 
king,  this  case  will  not  be  found  an  exceptional  instance  ; 
for  the  reverence  paid  to  the  eastern  monarch,  and  to 


GO  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [MATT.  II.  11. 

the  king  of  Persia  in  particular,  which  technically  bore 
this  name  of  adoration  or  worship,  did  entirely  ground 
itself  on  the  recognition  of  him  as  the  representative  and 
incarnation  of  Ormuzd,  and  was  purely  an  act  of  reUgious 
homage.^  Therefore,  indeed,  the  introduction  of  this 
ceremony  found  such  resistance  both  from  the  Greek^ 
and  the  Jew,  (Esth.  iii.  2,)  although  the  motives  of  the 
resistance  were  very  different,  the  Greek  refusing  com- 
pliance as  dishonouring  to  himself,  the  Jew  as  dishonour- 
ing to  his  God."^ 

But  even  if  the  words  admitted  any  plausible  doubt  on 
this  matter,  which  they  do  not,  in  the  very  circumstance 
of  these  wise  men's  coming  there  lay  a  recognition, 
upon  their  part,  of  something  more  than  mortal  in  Him 
who  was  the  object  of  their  quest.  He  must  have  been 
one  in  their  eyes  who,  though  ^''  King  of  the  Jews,^^  or 


*  Two  passages,  for  many,  may  be  quoted,  Curtius  says,  (viii.  5:) 
Persas  reges  suos  inter  Deos  colere ;  and  the  Persian  in  Plutarch  (The- 
raistocles,  c.  27:)  'H^ti*  vo/uog  icrn  xi^<.av  ^slo-iksa  xaty  TTQaa-KUviiv  stitc,- 
ya  Qeov  lav  Ta  Trctrra  cwtovTOf. 

=  Herodotus,  vii.  136. 

^  We  have  further  evidence,  not  of  course  such  as  we  could  rest 
much  on  by  itself,  but  of  weight,  as  joined  with  all  else,  that  the  Evan- 
gelist intended  to  relate  an  act  of  religious  worship — in  other  wwds, 
with  which  he  expresses  the  homage  done  by  these  magi  to  the  infant 
Lord.  Without  urging  too  much  the  Tr^ooijvsyxAv  and  the  Sw^a,  yet 
it  is  worthy  of  note  how  exclusively  in  the  sense  of  a  religious  offering 
the  words  Tr^-.'a-cpi^siv  and  nQoa-cpo^a  are  used  in  tlie  New  Testament; 
thus  eighteen  or  nineteen  times  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  alone; 
and  dw^ov  only  once  signifies  the  gift  which  man  makes  to  man,  (Rev. 
xi.  10,)  but  sixteen,  or  seventeen  times,  including  the  present,  the  gift  or 
offering  which  man  makes  to  God. 


MATT.  II.  11.]        THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  61 

who  rather,  because  ^^  King  of  the  Jews,''''  was  also  King 
of  another  and  far  higher  kingdom.  What  attraction 
would  "a  King  of  the  Jews^''  who  was  only  such,  and 
in  nothing  differed  from  other  kings,  have  had  in  their 
eyes,  that  he  should  have  drawn  them  from  their  distant 
homes?  How,  moreover,  could  they  have  ventured,  at 
the  centre  of  Herod's  kingdom  and  power,  to  announce 
that  they  were  come  to  do  homage  even  there  to  another 
king  than  himself?  or  how  could  he,  without  so  manifest 
an  absurdity,  such  a  contradiction  as  must  at  once  have 
betrayed  him,  have  proposed  to  unite  in  that  homage,  un- 
less it  had  been  clearly  understood,  on  their  part  as  on 
his,  that  this  King  was  ruler  of  a  kingdom  spiritual  and 
divine,  which  need  not  therefore  have  been  assumed  in 
the  least  to  interfere  or  clash  with  his,  however  to  his 
fears  it  actually  seemed  as  if  it  would  ?  We  are  not  of 
course  to  suppose  that  they,  any  more  than  others  who, 
at  a  later  period  of  our  Lord's  life,  are  said  to  have  wor- 
shipped Him  ;  (Matt.  viii.  2 ;  xx.  20 ;  Mark  v.  6 ;  John 
ix.  38,  &c.,)  possessed  already  the  full-formed  faith  of 
the  after  Church,  concerning  the  person  of  her  Lord — a 
faith  into  the  full  consciousness  of  which,  and  all  that  it 
involved,  the  Church  herself  only  came  by  degrees.  To 
suppose  this  would  be  to  suppose  that  they  ran  before 
apostles  themselves  in  their  knowledge  of  Christ.  For 
even  on  them  the  knowledge  of  all  which  in  their  Lord 
was  given  them  only  dawns  by  little  and  little,  as  from 
glory  to  glory.  But  these  worshippers  possessed  this 
faith  in  its  germs,  and  such  that  it  only  waited  the  occa- 
sion of  its  further  development;  which  being  so,  this 
Epi-phany  was  also  what  the  Church  has  so  often  loved 
to  call  it,  a  Thcophany  as  well. 


62  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  11. 

^^And  when  they  had  opened  their  treasures,''''  by 
which  'Hreasures^^  we  must  understand,  not  the  precious 
things  themselves  which  they  had  brought,  but  the  chests, 
caskets,  vessels,  (which  is  the  word  of  the  Arabic  version,) 
or  other  receptacles  which  contained  them,^ — ^'' they  pre- 
sented unto  Him  gifts,^''^ — after  the  custom  of  the  East, 


*  @y]aave^oq  =  nj,nN,  Deut.  xxviii.  12,  the  receptacle  for  treasure,  (Jo- 
sephus,  Antt,  ix.  8,  2,)  whether  portable  as  here,  =  xi^wroq,  2  Kin. 
xii.  9;  LXX.;  or  the  treasure -chamber,  as  often  elsewhere:  Matt.  xii. 
35:  xiii.  52;  Josh.  vi.  19;  LXX. 

2  There  was  another  passage  of  prophecy  besides  the  more  obvious 
ones,  Ps.  Ixxii.  10;  Isai.  Ix.  C,  alluded  to  already,  which  was  very  com- 
monly, in  the  early  Church,  held  to  have  found  its  fulfilment  in  these 
gifts— namely,  Isai.  viii.  4.  Such  an  application  of  the  passage  was  fa- 
voured by  the  earlier  Latin  translation,  which,  as  we  gather  from  Ter- 
tullian  (Adv.  Jud., c  9;  cf  Adv.  Marcion.,  1.  3,  c.  13)  was:  Jlccipiet 
virtutem  Damasci  et  spolia  Samarise,  and  not  as  in  the  Vulgate:  Auferetur 
fortitudo  Damasci  et  spolia  Samarise.  How  the  application  was  exactly 
made  may  be  best  understood  by  a  quotation  from  Augustine,  (Serra. 
202,  c.  2,)  who,  however,  is  plainly  following  therein  the  footsteps  of 
Tertullian.  Alluding  to  these  gifts,  he  says:  Tunc  enim  puer  prius 
quam  sciret  vocare  patrem  et  matrem,  sicut  %e  illo  fuerat  prophetatum, 
accepit  virtutem  Damasci  et  spolia  Samarise :  id  est,  antequam  per  hu- 
manam  carnem  humana  verba  proferret,  accepit  virtutem  Damasci,  illud 
scil.  unde  Damascus  prsesumebat.  In  divitiis  quippe  civitas  ilia  secun- 
dum sseculum  florens  aliquando  prsesumserat.  In  divitiis  autem  princi- 
patus  auro  defertur,  quod  Christo  magi  suppliciter  obtulerunt.  Spolia 
vero  Samarise  iidem  ipsi  erant,  qui  earn  incolebant.  Samaria  namque 
pro  idololatria  posita.  .  ,  Debellaturus  scil.  Christus  gladio  spiritali  per 
universum  orbem  regnum  diaboli,  hsec  prima  puer  spolia  idololatriae  do- 
minatione  detraxit,  ut  ad  se  adorandum  magos  converses  a  peste  illius 
superstitionis  averteret;  et  in  hac  terra  nondum  loquens  per  linguam, 
loqueretur  de  caelo  per  stellam ;  ut  et  quis  esset,  et  quo,  et  propter  quos 
venisset,  non  voce  carnis,  sed  virtute  Verbi,  quod  care  factum  est,  de- 
nionstraret. 


MATT.  II.  11.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  63 

which  will  not  allow  any  person  to  come  empty-handed 
into  the  presence  of  the  great,  but  requires  that  the  in- 
ward devotedness  should  embody  itself  in  an  outward 
gift.  Thus  we  have  continual  mention  of  such  gifts,  as 
made  to  kings  and  other  great  persons  on  earth,  and  to 
the  King  of  kings  in  heaven.  (I  Sam.  x.  27 ;  1  Kin. 
X.  2  ;  Gen.  xxxii.  13;  xliii.  11,25;  1  Sam.  ix.  7;  xxv. 
18,  27;  Job  xiii.  11.)  That  these  gifts  on  this  occasion 
presented  w^ere  themselves  mystical  ;^  that  they  who  of- 
fered them  meant  more,  or  at  any  rate  that  more  was 
meant  by  the  Spirit  which  prompted  them  to  these,  than 
merely  that  they  would  present  to  this  Child  the  costliest 
things  which  they  had  ;  that  in  these,  no  less  than  in  the 
worship  which  went  with  them,  there  was  a  confession 
of  faith,2  explicit  or  implicit; — this  the  Church  has  ever- 
more felt ;  and  the  special  symbolic  significance  which 
has  been  attributed  severally  to  the  three  gifts  is  proba- 
bly familiar  to  all.  The  frankincense,  the  choicest  of 
all  odours,  was  offered  to  the  Son  of  God,  who  as  such 
was  himself  also  God,  and  to  whom  therefore  the  sweet 
odours  of  prayer  and  all  other  sacrifices  were  rightly 
due :  the  myrrh  to  the  son  of  Mary,  who,  as  man,  was 
subject  to  mortality,  while  at  the  same  time  he  should  be 
free  from  corruption ;  the  myrrh,  therefore,  used  in  burial, 
and  yet  preserving  from  decay,  containing  a  latent  pro- 
phecy, not  of  his  death  and  burial  only,  as  it  is  some- 


*  Mystica  munera,  Juvencus  calls  them. 

'  Leo  the  Great:  Quod  cordibus  credunt,  muneribus  protestantur. 
Fulgenlius:  Attende  quid  obtulerint,  et  cognosce  quid  crediderint. 


64  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  1  I . 

times  explained,  but  the  pledge  also  of  his  resurrection  :* 
and  the  gold  to  the  Son  of  David,  the  King  of  Israel,  to 
whom  all  other  kings  and  people  should  yield  tribute  of 
the  most  precious  things  which  they  had.^ 

But  these  gifts,  royal,  divine,  and  human,  may  claim 
to  be  considered  somewhat  more  in  detail.  There  is  a 
sacred  character  belonging  to  all  three,  and  not  the  least 
to  the  gold.  Even  now  in  the  East  there  are  nations,  the 
Burmese  for  instance,  among  whom  it  is  not  permitted  to 
coin  gold  into  money,  or  otherwise  to  employ  it  in  com- 
mon and  profane  uses  ;  this  metal  being  reserved  exclu- 
sively for  divine,  or,  which  is  there  the  same  thing,  royal 
uses,^  and  being  with  them  a  usual  offering  to  their  gods; 
(cf.  Ps.  Ixxvii.  15:  "To  Him  shall  be  given  of  the  gold 
of  Arabia.")  On  this,  its  sacred  character,  rests  the  fact 
that  in  the  Holy  of  Holies,  as  the  image  of  heaven,  all 
is  either  of  massive  gold,  or  thickly  overlaid  with  gold. 


'  So  in  the  ancient  hymn: — 

M3n'rha,  caro  verbo  nupfa, 
Per  quod  manet  incorrupta 
Caro  carens  carie. 

*  The  earliest  writer,  I  believe,  who  makes  this  application,  at  least  of 
those  who  have  come  down  to  us,  is  Irenseus  (Con.  Hser.,  1.  3,  c.  9,  § 
2:)  Matthaeus  magos  ait  per  ea  quae  obtulerunt  munera  ostendisse,  quis 
erat  qui  adorabatur.  Myrrham  quidem,  quod  ipse  erat,  qui  pro  mortali 
humano  genere  moreretur  et  sepeliretur ;  aurum  vero  quoniam  Rex, 
cujus  regni  finis  non  est;  thus  vero,  quoniam  Deus,  qui  et  notus  in  Ju- 
daea factus  est,  [Ps.  Ixxv.  2]  et  manifestus  eis,  qui  non  quserebant  eum. 
Cf.  Origen,  Con.  Cels.,  1.  1,  c.  60;  and  generally  for  passages  from  the 
Greek  Fathers,  Suicer,  Ther.,  v.  xi^avoc. 

3  Riitcr,  Erdkunde  von  Asien,  4,  1,  244. 


MATT.  II.  11.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  65 

(Exod.  xxxviii.;  cf.  1  Kin.  vi.)  For  heaven  is  the  palace 
of  light — of  light,  it  needs  not  to  say,  ethically  contem- 
plated ;  and  in  the  bright  shining  of  gold  there  is  that 
which  better  symbolizes  light  than  any  thing  besides. 
And  thus,  too,  the  New  Jerusalem,  "having  the  glory  of 
God,"  the  brightness  of  God's  presence,  is  a  city  of  pure 
gold.  (Rev.  xxi.  11,  18,  33.)  Alike  in  the  actual  taber- 
nacle and  in  the  ideal  City,  something  more  than  the 
costliness  of  the  gold  is  to  be  taken  into  account,  to  ex- 
plain its  selection  as  the  material  of  which  the  one  and 
other  is  composed ;  and  so  is  it  here.  This  gift  is 
not  less  significant  of  the  higher  character  of  Him  to 
whom  it  is  offered  than  the  two  with  which  it  is  joined.* 
The  frankincense,-  among  all  the  odours  of  antiquity 
the  highest  prized  and  the  costliest,  was  a  gum  exuding, 
with  slight  solicitation,  from  a  plant  about  which  there  is 
nearly  as  much  uncertainty  now,  as  Pliny  confesses  thai 


*  The  suggestion  which  has  been  sometimes  made,  that  this  gold  may 
have  served,  and  by  the  providence  of  God  was  intended,  in  the  deep 
poverty  of  the  Holy  Family,  to  serve  as  a  viaticum  on  occasion  of  the 
hurried  flight  into  Egypt,  which  was  so  near—  this  suggestion  is  not  al- 
together to  be  rejected,  since  we  know  that  at  a  later  period  the  Lord 
condescended  to  accept  and  use  the  offerings  of  his  servants.  (Luke 
viii.  3.) 

^  At^civo?  only  occurs  here  and  Rev.  xviii.  13,  in  the  New  Testament. 
It  is  strictly  the  tree  which  yields  the  frankincense,  and  Xi^avuirog,  (which 
is  used  with  a  certain  impropriety  for  the  censer  or  thuribulum.  Rev. 
viii.  3,  5,)  the  frankincense  itself  But  Aristotle  does  not  observe  the 
distinction,  and  in  Hellenistic  Greek,  in  the  Septuagint  for  instance,  it  is 
entirely  neglected.  Thus,  often  as  the  frankincense  is  here  named, 
Xt^Avwrot  is  found  only  once,  (1  Chron.  lx.29,)  but  h^aios  continually. 

5 


66  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  1  1  . 

in  his  time  there  was.^  The  Jews  obtained  it  from  Arabia 
Felix,  (Jer.  vi.  20,)  and  in  all  antiquity  it  was  considered 
to  be  a  native  there,  and  there  only. 2  Yet  modern  na- 
turalists are  now  generally  agreed  that  the  genuine  frank- 
incense is  a  product  of  India,  and  was  only  believed  to 
be  of  Arabia,  because  it  could  not  be  traced  further  than 
to  the  Arabian  merchants,  through  whose  hands  the  in- 
habitants of  Western  Asia  and  Europe  obtained  it.  How 
frequent  its  use  in  the  Levitical  offerings  need  not  to  be 
observed;  so  frequent  and  so  predominant,  that  although 
we  cannot  affirm  it  to  have  been  absolutely  restricted  to 
the  service  of  God,  yet  we  justly  feel  that  there  was  an 
ascription  of  Divine  honours  to  Him  unto  whom  this  of- 
fering was  made. 

In  the  myrrh  there  is  no  such  explicit  recognition  of  a 
Divine  character  in  Him  to  whom  it  is  presented,  as  in 
the  two  preceding  gifts  ;  nor  was  it  to  be  expected  that 
there  should,  since  in  this  lay  rather  the  confession  of  his 
mortality.  It  appears,  indeed,  as  one  of  the  four  ingre- 
dients of  the  holy  anointing  oil,  (Exod.  xxx.  23,)  but 
this  is  the  only  occasion  on  which  we  find  it  serving  for 
holy  uses.  It  oozed  from  an  acacia-like  plant,  found 
chiefly  in  Arabia,  and  was  used  dry  as  a  gum,  or  liquid 
as  an  ointment.  Its  antiseptic  qualities  caused  it  to  be 
employed  freely  for  purposes  of  embalming;  and  thus  it 
was  largely  imported  into  Egypt,  (Gen.  xxxvii.  25 ;  xliii. 
11;)  and  in  a  hundred  pounds'  weight  of  myrrh  and  aloes 
Nicodem-us  wrapt  the  dead  body  of  our  Lord,  (John  xix. 


»  H.  N.,  1.  12,  c.  31. 

'  Odor  Aiabicus,  as  it  was  therefore  called.     Cf.  Heredotus,  3,  107. 


MATT.  II.  11.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  V/ISE  MEX.  67 

39,)  so  that  in  this  very  cradle  he  receives  already  the 
prophecy  of  his  death. ^ 


1  It  is  well  known  that  the  dramatic  representation  of  modern  Europe 
grew  up  under  the  wing  of  the  Church,  and  only  slowly  detached  itself 
from  this  its  earliest  shelter.  Of  the  dramatic  element,  which  was  al- 
lowed to  find  place  in  its  own  services,  we  have  a  curious  illustration  in 
the  manner  in  which  this  offering  of  the  Magi  was  set  forth  in  some 
churches  on  the  festival  of  Epiphany.  (Binterim,  Denkwiirdigkeiten, 
V.  5,  p.  316.)  Three  boys,  clothed  in  silk,  with  golden  crowns  upon 
their  heads,  and  each  a  golden  vessel  in  his  hand,  represented  the  wise 
men  from  the  East.  Entering  the  choir,  and  advancing  toward  the  al- 
tar, they  chanted  the  following  strophe : 

O  quara  dignis  celebranda  dies  ista  laudibus, 
In  qua  Christi  genitura  propalatur  gentibus, 
Pax  terrenis  nunciatur,  gloria  coelestibus; 
Novi  Partus  signum  fulget  Orientis  Patria. 
Currant  reges  Orientis  stella  sibi  praevia, 
Currunt  reges  et  adorant  Deum  ad  praesepia, 
Tres  adorant  reges  unum,  triplex  est  oblatio. 
During  the  singing  of  these  verses  they  gradually  approached  the  al- 
tar; there  the  first   lifted  up  the  vessel  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  ex- 
claiming; 

Aurum  primo, 
And  the  second; 

thus  secundo, 
And  the  third ; 

myrrham  dante  tertio. 
Hereupon,  the  first  once  more; 

Aurum  regem, 
The  second; 

thus  coelestem, 
And  the  third ; 

mori  nutat  unctio. 
Then  one  of  Ihem  pointed  with  his  hand  to  the  Star  hanging  from  the 


68  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  1  U 

And  now  the  first  great  Manifestation  of  Christ  to 
the  Gentiles  is  complete.  It  is  because  the  coming  of 
the  Magi  has  ever  been  contemplated  by  the  Church  in 
the  light  of  such  a  Manifestation,  because  these  wise 
men  have  been  by  it  regarded  as  the  ambassadors  of 
the  heathen  world,'  and  thus  their  homage,  the  homage 
of  all,  that  the  day  on  which  they  came  occupies  so 
prominent  a  place  in  our  Christian  Year.  That,  re- 
garded thus,  it  should  do  so,  lay  in  the  very  nature  of 
things.  For  us  Gentiles  that  day  could  be  one  of  no 
common  solemnity  or  gladness,  on  which  the  first  signi- 
ficant intimation  was  given  that  He  who  was  born  King 
of  the  Jews,  was  also  He  in  whom  the  Gentiles  might 
trust;  willing  to  receive  the  homage  of  those  who  were 
far  off",  as  well  as  those  who  were  near.^     That  day 


roof  of  the  church,  and  sang  in  a  loud  voice:  Hoc  signum  magni  Re- 
gis: and  all  three  proceeded  to  make  their  offerings,  singing  meanwhile 
the  responsal,  Eamus,  inquiramus  eum,  et  offeramus  ei  munera,  aurum, 
thus,  et  myrrham.  At  the  conclusion  of  this  responsal,  a  younger  boy 
lifted  up  his  voice,  which  was  meant  to  imitate  the  voice  of  an  angel, 
from  behind  the  altar,  and  sang:  Nuntium  vobis  fero  de  supemis;  Na- 
tus  est  Christus  dommator  orbis.  In  Bethlehem  Judae;  sic  enim  pro- 
pheta  dixerat  ante.  Hereupon  the  three  who  represented  the  kings 
withdrew  into  the  sacristy,  singing,  In  Bethlehem  natus  est  Rex  coelo- 
Tum,  &c. 

1  Chrysostom  yet  more  strongly  entitles  them:  o/  tjjc  ix,y.xr]viai 
7T  goyoroi. 

2  Leo  the  Great,  who  has  no  less  than  seven  admirable  sermons  on 
the  Epiphany,  (Serm.  30 — 36,)  explains  well  in  the  first  of  them  the 
grounds  on  which  the  Church  has  a  feast  of  Epiphany,  and  what  there 
is  of  universal  interest  wrapt  up  in  that  special  event  of  this  day:  Ad 
omnium  enim  hominum  spectat  salutem,  quod  infantia  Mediatoiis  Dei 


MATT.  II.  11.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  69 

must  needs  be  a  great  one  for  us,  which  showed  the 
Gentiles  coming  to  the  brightness  of  his  rising,  and  not 
coming  only,  but  drawn  thither  by  an  especial  leading 
of  his  providence  and  grace ;  for  it  is  not  the  day  on 
which  the  Gentiles  found  Him, — that  was  but  the  con- 
sequence,— the  day  is  rather  that  of  his  manifesting  of 
Himself  to  the  Gentiles. 

The  Church  Collect  of  this  day  abundantly  justifies 
its  name,  collecting  and  gathering  up  into  a  single  focus 
so  much  of  the  past  thought  and  feeling  and  utterance  of 
the  Church  in  regard  of  this  day,  and  of  the  application 
to  ourselves  of  that  event  which  on  it  we  celebrate.  That 
our  faith  may  pass  into  sight  as  did  that  of  these  eastern 
sages,  this  is  plainly  its  petition.  Faith  passed  for  them 
into  sight,  when  they  who  had  trusted  so  long  to  that 
lodestar  in  the  heaven,  who  had  travelled  so  far,  not  see- 
ing but  believing,  at  length  entered  the  house,  and  "5oi^ 
the  young  Child''''  with  his  mother.  And,  looking  at 
them,  we  ask  that  our  faith,  the  faith  by  which  we  walk 
in  the  present  time,  may  pass  into  a  sight  even  more 
blessed  than  theirs  was  then ;  for  that  was  of  the  Lord 
still  in  his  weakness  and  infirmity,  but  this  in  which  we 


et  hominum  jam  universe  declarabatur  mundo,  cum  adhuc  exiguo  deti- 
neretur  oppidulo.  Quamvis  enim  Israeliticam  gentem  et  ipsius  gentis 
unam  familiam  delegisset,  de  qu^  naturara  universae  humanitatis  as- 
sumeret,  noluit  tamen  intra  maternae  habitationis  angustias  ortus  sui 
latere  primordia;  sed  mox  ab  omnibus  voluit  agnosci,  qui  dignatus  est 
omnibus  nasci.  And  Aquinas  (Summ.  Theol.,  3,  36,  3:)  Ula  mani- 
festatio  nativitatis  Christi  fuit  quaedam  praelibatio  plenae  manifestationis 
quae  erat  futura. 


70  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [maTT.  II.  11. 

ask  that  our  faith  may  be  swallowed  up,  is  even  the  frui- 
tion of  his  glorious  Godhead.^ 


^  The  point  of  the  Collect,  which  perhaps  is  sometimes  missed,  lies 
clearly  in  the  antithesis  between  " faith "  and  "fruition,"  This  point 
comes  out  more  clearly,  with  the  allusion  to  2  Cor.  v.  7:  Perjidem 
enim  ambulamus,  et  non  per  speciem,  in  the  Collect  as  it  stood  in  the 
Latin:  Deus  qui  hodiema  die  Unigenitum  tuum  gentibus  stella  duce 
revelasti ;  concede  prcpitius,  ut  qui  jam  te  ex  fide  cognovimus,  usque  ad 
contemplandam  specievi  tuae  celsitudinis  perducamur,  per  eundem  Do- 
minum.  Long  as  is  the  following  extract,  it  is  yet  so  beautiful  in  it- 
self, and  helps  so  much  to  place  us  in  a  right  point  of  view  for  under- 
standing this  Collect  and  the  Church's  meaning  therein,  that  I  shall 
quote  it ;  and  the  more  readily,  as  we  are  often  in  danger  of  missing 
many  testimonies  of  the  English  Church's  love  and  reverence  for  anti- 
quity, through  our  too  slight  acquaintance  with  the  elder  theology  of 
the  Church,  in  allusions  to  which,  her  prayers,  and  especially  her  col- 
lects, are  so  eminently,  and  yet  so  unostentatiously,  rich.  The  passage 
is  from  an  Epiphany  sermon  of  Guemcus,  a  worthy  scholar  of  St.  Ber- 
nard (Bernard!  0pp.,  ed.  Bened.  v.  2,  p.  956  :)  Gratias  tibi.  Pater  lu- 
minum,  qui  dixisti  de  tenebris  lumen  splendescere,  et  illuxisti  in  cordr- 
bus  nostris  ad  illuminationem  scientise  in  facie  Christi  Jesu.  Haec  siqui- 
dem  est  lux  vera,  immo  vita  seterna,  ut  cognoscamus  te  unum  Deum,  et 
quem  misisti  Jesum  Christum.  Cognoscimus  quidem  per  fidem,  ipsam 
tenentes  arrham  fidelera  quia  cognoscemus  te  per  speciem.  Interim 
tamen  auge  nobis  fidem;  donee  per  fidem  perducamur  ad  faciem,  tanquam 
per  stellara  proeducem  ad  nostrum  Bethleemiticum  ducem,  qui  egressus 
de  Betlileem  regit  Israelem  et  regnat  in  Jerusalem.  O  quanto  gaudio 
ibi  tripudiat  fides  magorum,  cernentium  in  ilia  Jemsalem  regnantem, 
quem  in  Bethleem  adoraverunt  vagientemi  Hie  visus  est  in  diversorio 
pauperum,  ibi  in  palatio  videtur  angelorum;  hie  in  pannis  parvulorura, 
ibi  in  splendoribus  sanctorum;  hie  in  gremio  matris,  ibi  in  solio  Patris. 
Plane  digna  beatorum  fides  magorum,  ut  tam  felici  visione  remuneretur ; 
quae  cum  in  eo  nihil  nisi  infirmum  et  contemptibile  videret,  non  tamen 
scandalizari  potuit,  quominus  Deum  in  homine,  et  hominem  in  Deo 
vcneraretur De  his  omnino  convenienter  intelligi  potest,  quod  anud 


MATT.  II.  11.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  71 

Before  leaving  this  visit  of  the  wise  men  contemplated 
in  the  light  of  an  Epiphany,  it  may  be  well  to  observe 
that  when  we  speak  of  it  as  the  Manifestation  of  Christ 
to  the  Gentiles,  the  words  must  not  be  taken  to  affirm 
that  this  was  the  only  one,  even  in  the  days  of  his  flesh, 
but  the  first.  For  as  our  Lord's  open  ministry  began 
and  ended  with  a  temptation,  began  with  that  of  the  wil- 
derness and  ended  with  that  of  the  garden,  exacdy  so  a 
manifestation  to  the  Gentiles  found  place  in  his  cradle 
and  just  before  his  cross.  It  is  indeed  curious  how 
slighdy  we  commonly  pass  over  the  other  and  later 
manifestation  of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles,  which  yet  St. 
John  relates  with  so  marked  an  emphasis,  which  die  Lord 
welcomes  with  such  a  solemn  gladness,  and  which  is  the 
motive  of  so  deep  a  discourse  of  his.  (John  xii.  20,  33.) 
Seldom  or  never  as  that  second  is  brought  into  relation 
with  this  first,  there  yet  exists  between  them  a  most  real 
connexion.  It  is  here  as  with  the  two  temptations,  which 
together  include  the  whole  circle  of  temptation:  for  ex- 
actly so  the  two  manifestations  of  Christ  embrace  together 
the  whole  Gentile  world  in  its  two  grand  divisions  of  east 
and  west.  This  earlier  was  to  the  elder  East,  that  later 
to  the  younger  West.  On  the  last  day  of  our  Lord's 
open  presence  in  the  temple  certain  Greeks  desire  to  see 


Salomcnem  scriptum  est,  Justorum  semita  quasi  lux  splendescens  pro- 
cedit,  et  crescit  usque  ad  perfectum  diem.  (Prov.  iv.  18.)  Primo  nam- 
que  semitam  justitias  ingressi  sunt  ad  lucera  splendentis  siueris,  cujus 
ductu  profecerunt  ad  videndum  novum  ortum  matutinse  lucis;  sicque 
demum  pervenerunt  ad  contemplandam  faciem  meridiani  Solis,  in  die 
virtutis  suaj  rutilantis. 


72  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  11. 

Jesus.  (John  xii.  21.)  What  is  this  but  the  question 
over  again,  "  Where  is  He  that  is  born  King  of  the 
Jews?^^  The  Lord  himself  recognises  all  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  moment,  and  of  that  request  of  theirs.  It 
fills  him  with  holy  joy ;  he  accepts  the  augury,  beholding 
in  this  little  band  of  Greeks  another  pledge  and  prophecy 
of  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  that  should  come  in,  and 
the  hour  as  already  present  in  which  He  would  be  glori- 
fied in  them.  (ver.  23,  24.) 

And  surely  it  is  not  a  little  noticeable  that  as  God 
spake,  as  we  have  seen,  to  those  eastern  wise  men  in  a 
symbol  of  nature,  and  in  that  the  most  suitable  to  them, 
by  a  Star,  so  to  those  western  Greeks  in  the  like,  by  a 
corn  of  wheat,  and  the  mute  prophecy  of  life  out  of  death 
which  it  contained.  Lest  they  should  be  perplexed  and 
offended  at  his  death,  which  was  so  near,  He  does  not 
refer  them  to  Old  Testament  prophecies,  according  to 
which  it  needed  that  Christ  should  suffer.  These  would 
have  been  indeed  most  fit  in  the  case  of  Jewish  candidates 
for  admission  into  the  circle  of  his  disciples,  from  whom 
He  would  fain  remove  the  offence  of  his  death,  (cf.  Luke 
xxiv.  26,  27;  Acts  xvii.  3.)  But  for  these  Greeks  He 
has  another  word;  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  ex- 
cept a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth 
alone,  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  And  if 
there  was  a  fitness  in  the  Star  for  those  eastern  watchers 
of  the  heavens,  there  was  at  least  an  equal  fitness  in  this 
image  of  the  corn  of  wheat  for  these  Greeks.  For  this 
truth  of  life  only  through  death,  w^hich  was  about  to  be 
sealed  first  in  Himself,  and  afterwards  in  each  one  of  his 
people,  was  just  the  truth  which  the  Greek  mind  had 


MATT.  II.  11.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  73 

missed,  which  in  the  moral  world  it  had  refused  to  know. 
They  had  contemplated  the  fair  and  beautiful  forms  of 
this  earthly  life  as  the  highest  which  humanity  could 
reach ;  they  had  sought  to  fix  these,  and  had  done  so  in 
a  thousand  shapes,  in  sculpture,  in  painting,  and  in 
poetry,  and  with  a  success  which  no  other  people  had  at 
all  approached.  But  yet  they  could  not  fix  them  for  ever. 
There  was  a  worm  at  the  root  of  all  this  beauty,  because 
it  was  not  a  beauty  of  holiness;  and  the  whole  story  of 
Greek  culture  with  all  its  tragic  issues  is  made  plain  to 
us  by  this  single  word  of  our  Lord's.  In  a  world  of 
sin,  only  through  the  grave  and  gate  of  death,  only  out 
of  a  divine  death,  a  death  in  God,  can  any  enduring  life 
or  beauty  come  forth;  the  corn  of  wlieat  must  die,  be- 
fore it  can  truly  live.  But  this  matter  would  lead  us 
from  our  immediate  theme,  and  we  must  not  follow  it 
further. 

But  now,  the  task  of  these  visiters,  far  from  being 
accomplished,  and  their  homage  paid,  the  wicked  king  . 
shall  not  be  permitted  to  weave  them  and  their  devoted- 
ness  to  the  Lord  into  the  dark  woof  of  the  treachery 
which  he  meditates.  They  are  '•'•warned  of  God  in  a 
dream  that  they  should  not  return  unto  Herody  We 
may  well  conceive  in  all  dreams  more  or  less  of  a  na- 
tural predisposition,  so  to  speak,  on  the  part  of  the 
dreamer.  The  thoughts  and  sights  of  day  are  the  stuff 
out  of  which  the  visions  of  the  night  are  woven;  and 
this  would  be  so  in  the  case  of  divine  dreams  and  vi- 
sions equally  as  in  that  of  others.  Peter  is  hungry,  and 
to  that  hunger  of  his,  itself  probably  more  than  natural, 
God  is  pleased  to  link  on  the  vision  of  the  sheet  full  of 


# 


74  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  11- 

all  manner  of  objects  for  the  satisfying  of  his  desire. 
That  hunger  is  used  as  the  first  motive  for  the  further 
teaching  which  the  apostle  shall  afterwards  receive. 
(Acts  X.  13.)  It  was  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
day  on  which  Jerusalem  was  smitten,  when,  there- 
fore, the  prophet's  thoughts  must  needs  have  been  dwell- 
ing on  the  great  desolations  of  that  earthly  city,  that  the 
glorious  vision  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  was  vouchsafed 
to  him.  (Ezek.  xl.  1.)  ^Nebuchadnezzar's  proud  dream 
of  empire,  prophetic  as  it  was,  yet  was  in  some  sort  only 
a  prolongation  of  his  waking  thoughts.  (Dan.  ii.  31.)' 
Perhaps  it  was  thus  also  with  these  wise  men.  Their 
interview  with  the  tyrant  grown  gray  in  wickedness  and 
crime,  may  have  inspired  them  only  with  distrust  and 
fear.  The  tiger  may  not  have  been  able  effectually  to 
hide  his  claws.  The  simpler  they  were,  the  more  sure, 
if  not  to  see  through  his  cunning  device,  yet  to  have  a 
feeling  and  instinct  of  his  falseness;  "for  to  be  innocent 
is  nature's  wisdom."^     In  such  a  suspicion  and  fear  they 


*  Gregory  the  Great;  A  radice  cogitationis  inchoavit:  which  Grotius 
carries  out  yet  further  in  some  admirable  remarks  on  the  diiFerciit  sym- 
bolism of  this  vision  of  the  proud  king,  and  the  later  vision  vouchsafed 
to  the  righteous  prophet  himself  (Dan.vii.  3:)  Nabuchodonosoro  futura 
imperia  ostenduntur  sub  facie  humana,  augusta,  grandi,  splendida;  quia 
ille  imperia  magni  faciebat,  et  habebat  quasi  pro  diis  suis,  qui  per  statuas 
coli  solebant  At  Danieli  infra  eadem  apparent  sub  ferarum  imagine; 
noverat  enim  propheta  esse  omnia  ista  imperia  idololatrife,  ac  proiiide 
Diaboli,  instrumcnta,  per  quae  tamen,  ut  et  per  ipsos  diabolos,  Deus  sua 
decreta  exsequcretur. 

*  As  Goethe,  who,  though  not  a  Christian,  yet  so  often  and  so  won- 
derfully witnesses  for  Christian  truth,  makes  the  learned  Faust  to  be 


MATT.  II.  12.]       THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  75 

may  have  left  his  presence,  and  may  thus  have  had  a 
certain  predisposition  for  the  divine  revelation  which  was 
vouchsafed  to  them  now.  But  be  that  as  it  might,  they 
had  this  warning  of  God  in  a  dream,  that  they  should 
not  return  to  Herod,  nor  assist  him  in  that  act  of  worship 
toward  the  royal  Child  which  he  meditated.  In  obedience 
to  the  heavenly  monition,  "  they  departed  into  their  own 
country  another  way''^^ — a  circumstance  vv^hich  has  not 
been  left  without  its  mystical  and  allegorical  application. 
Al!,  it  has  been  said,  who,  like  these  wise  men,  have  seen 
Christ,  have  been  admitted  into  his  presence  and  wor- 
shipped Him,  will,  after  that  glorious  manifestation  of 
Him  in  their  souls,  walk  in  quite  another  way  from  that 
which  hitherto  they  have  been  treading.^  Here  we  lose 
sight  of  these  mysterious  visiters  of  the  cradle  of  our 
Lord,  whom,  however,  the  legends  of  a  later  day  fondly 


deceived  by  Mephistopheles,  but  the  simple  Margaret  to  have  a  shudder- 
ing and  instinctive  sense  of  bis  Satanic  nature  from  the  first. 

*  For  their  long  journey's  sake  the  Magi  are  often  in  Koman  Catholic 
countries  taken  as  the  pati'ons  of  travellers.  Thus  in  Styria  and  Carin- 
thia  it  is  common  even  now  to  have  the  initials  of  their  supposed  names, 
C.  M.  B.,  (see  p.  15,^  over  the  doors  of  the  inns. 

^Ambrose  (Exp.  in  Luc,  1.  2,  §  46:)  Alia  venerunt  via  magi,  alia 
redeunt;  qui  enim  Christum  viderant,  Christum  intellexerant,  meliores 
utique  quam  venerant,  revertuntur.  Augustine  (Serm.  202,  c.  3:)  Nos 
ergo,  carissimi,  quorum  erant  illi  magi  primitias,  nos  haereditas  Christi 
usque  ad  terminos  terrEe  ...  sic  eura  annuntiemus  in  hac  terrd  in  hac 
regione  carnis  nostrse,  ut  non  qua  venimus  redeamus,  nee  prioris  nostras 
conversation  is  vestigia  repetamus.  Hoc  est  enim  quod  et  illi  magi,  non 
qua  venerant,  redierunt.  Via  mutata,  vita  mutata  est.  For  a  slightly 
different  use  of  this  their  returning  by  another  way,  see  Tertullian,  De 
Idoiolat.,  c.  9. 


76  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.      [mATT.  II.  12. 

pursued  to  their  own  land,  out  of  a  sense  which  in  itself 
was  indeed  a  true  one,  that  their  lives  could  not  hence- 
forth have  been  common  ones,  that  this  coming  of  theirs, 
which  has  so  great  and  so  lasting  a  significance  for  us, 
must  needs  have  had  more  than  a  passing  significance 
for  themselves.     But  with  these  we  have  not  to  do.^ 


*  There  is  a  sketch  done  with  exquisite  grace,  of  the  whole  legendary 
lore  which  in  the  middle  ages  gradually  clustered  round  the  brief  scrip- 
tural account  of  the  Magi,  in  an  article  on  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne, 
in  the  Quarterly  Review,  1846,  v.  kxviii.,  p.  433—437.  The  very 
popular  story  book  from  which  it  is  drawn,  and  which  of  course  did  but 
in  the  main  gather  up  the  legends  already  existing,  was  composed  by 
Johannes  von  Hildesheim,  who  died  in  1375,  and  it  has  much  to  tell  of 
the  first  arrival  of  these  Magi  from  their  own  land.  Kings  of  three  dif- 
ferent regions  in  India,  of  Godolia,  Saba,  and  Tharsis,  they  arrived  each 
with  his  numerous  retinue  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem, 
by  separate  routes,  and  unknown  to  each  other,  and  only  there  at  its 
gates  discovered  that  the  same  errand,  and  the  same  Star  had  drawn 
them  all.  It  has  much  also  to  tell  of  Herod's  fear,  as  with  their  united 
trains,  in  numbers  like  an  army,  they  rode  through  the  streets  of  Jerusa- 
lem ;  of  their  own  amazement  at  the  unutterable  light  which  filled  the 
lowly  hut  where  they  found  the  infant  Lord ;  so  that,  instead  of  all  the 
costly  treasures  which  they  had  brought  to  offer,  they  presented  each 
what  came  first  to  hand — a  little  gold,  some  frankincense,  and  some 
myrrh.  And  not  to  dwell  on  much  else,  wonderfully  characteristic  of 
that  fresh  spring  of  poetry  which,  in  those  ages,  was  everywhere  bub- 
bling up — we  have  in  this  little  Volksbuch  all  the  later  history  of  the  kings 
from  the  time  that  we  lose  sight  of  them  in  the  sacred  records.  We  learn 
how  they  were  baptized  by  St.  Thomas,  the  apostle  of  India,  and  assisted 
him  in  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  there,  and  how  at  length  they  sealed 
the  faith  of  Christ  with  their  blood.  Nor  does  this  history  leave  them 
till  after  many  vicissitudes  it  at  length  brings  their  bones  to  Cologne, 
the  city  of  the  Three  Kings,  which  even  now  believes  itself  enriched 
with  these  relics,  and  in  its  cathedral  would  fain  rear  a  shrine  worthy 
to  contain  them. 


MATT.  II.  13.]   THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  77 

It  was  after  the  departure  of  the  Magi, — we  are  not 
told  how  soon  after,  and  our  estimate  of  the  interval  that 
had  elapsed,  will  be  affected  by  many  considerations, — 
that  Joseph  was  warned,  and  by  the  same  channel  of 
communication,  "  to  take  the  young  Child  and  his  mO' 
ther  and  Jlee  into  Egypt.""  That  land  was  at  once  so 
near,  and  of  such  easy  access,  that  we  find  it  continually 
serving  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  those  who  on  any  ac- 
count desired  to  make  swift  escape  from  Palestine; 
(Jer.  xxvi.  21 ;  xliii.  7;  1  Kin.  xi.  40  ;)  while  yet,  near 
as  it  was,  it  had  this  advantage,  that  it  lay  beyond  the 
jurisdiction  of  Herod.  But  besides  these  obvious  reasons 
for  its  selection,  it  was  a  land  which  had  already  played 
its  part  in  the  two  great  crises  of  the  early  history  of 
the  fleshly  Israel ;  then,  when,  with  Jacob,  the  children 
of  Israel  came  down  thither;  and  again,  when  Moses 
led  them  out  of  that  land ;  and  it  should  therefore  now 
fitly  play  its  part  again  in  the  early  history  of  the  spi- 
ritual Israel,  as  concentrated  in  Christ.*  The  words 
"  Be  thou  there  until  I  bring  thee  word,''^  intimate  ano- 
ther revelation  in  reserve  for  Joseph.  He  should  take 
no  single  step  in  behalf  of  this  Child  committed  to  his 


*  Thus  Leo  the  Great  (Serni.  32:)  At  ille,  qui  sanguiriem  suum  pro 
mundi  redemtione  fundendum  in  aliam  difFerret  setatem,  ^<gypto  se 
parentum  ministerio  subvectus  intulerat,  repetens  scilicet  Hebraeae  gentis 
antiqua  cunabula,  et  principatum  veri  Joseph  majoris  providentise  potes- 
tate  disponens,  ut  illam  diriorem  omni  inedia  famem  qud  -^gyptiorum 
mentes  veritatis  inopi^  laborabant,  veniens  de  coelo  Panis  vitaB  et  cibus 
rationis  auferret ;  nee  sine  ilia  regione  pararetur  singularis  hostiae  sacra- 
mentum,  in  qu4  primum  occisione  agni,  salutiferum  Crucis  signum  et 
Pascha  Domini  fuerat  prseformatura. 


78  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  14. 

guardianship  without  a  distinct  leading  and  intimation  of 
God's  will.  For  of  Him,  even  more  than  of  any  other, 
tliat  word  should  be  true  that  his  times  should  be  in  his 
Father's  hands. 

Joseph,  aroused  from  sleep,  at  once  ^'■tooh  the  young 
Child  and  his  mother  by  nighty  and  departed  into 
JEgypt.^^  This  "by  night  "  may  not  mdicate  any  more 
than  the  promptness  of  his  obedience,  so  that  without 
delay,  that  very  night,  he  commenced  the  journey;  or, 
seeing  that  there  is  no  "  by  night "  mentioned  on  the 
occasion  of  his  return,  (ver.  21,)^  the  word  may  very 
well  also  imply  the  urgent  peril  of  the  time,  which,  as 
he  rightly  understood,  would  brook  no  delay,  but  made  it 
needful  that  their  flight  should  be  at  once  instant  and 
secret — instant,  lest  the  bloody  emissaries  of  Herod 
should  be  upon  them ;  secret,  lest,  if  the  way  which  they 
had  taken  were  known,  these  might  follow  the  fugitives 
on  their  track. 

These  perils  of  the  infancy  of  our  Lord  have  their 
historic  and  their  mythic  anticipations  and  counterparts; 
in  Moses  their  historic  ;  in  many,  and  notably  in  the  real 
or  assumed  founders  of  religions  and  of  empires,  Cyrus 
and  Romulus  for  example,  their  mythic.  This  last  cir- 
cumstance is  nothing  strange  ;  for  when  we  regard  Christ 
as  the  central  man  of  humanity,  we  shall  feel  that  it  was 
only  to  be  expected,  that  in  Him  should  repeat  themselves 


*  Jerome,  who  notes  this,  seems  to  hint  something  mystical  in  this 
"  by  night  j"  like  that  "  it  was  night"  when  the  traitor  Judas  went  forth 
upon  his  errand,  (John  xiii.  30;)  that  the  present  was  even  an  "  hour 
and  power  of  darkness." 


MATT.  II.  14.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  79 

in  a  higher  form  many  of  the  incidents  which  had  found 
place,  or  had  been  imagined  to  find  place,  in  other  notable 
personages  of  history.  For  how  many  shadows  took 
substance,  how  many  dreams  became  realities  in  Him  ! 
The  sense  that  the  world  of  unrighteousness  will  be  up 
in  arms  against  the  mighty  redresser  of  wrongs,  and  as 
such,  it  must  be  remembered,  the  legends  about  these  in 
each  case  describe  them,  that  it  will  have  an  instinct  of 
his  appearance,  and  will  endeavour  to  tread  out,  while 
it  is  yet  a  tiny  spark,  that  fire  that  shall  one  day  con- 
sume it,  this  sense  men  have  every  where  had;  and  with 
this,  and  as  the  consequence  of  this,  they  have  felt  that 
his  very  infancy  shall  not  be  secure,  that  there  shall  be 
plots  of  hell  against  the  heavenly  Destroyer,  long  ere  he 
has  put  forth  his  destroying  might;  that  the  future  Her- 
cules will  have  to  strangle  serpents  in  his  cradle.  Nor 
has  men's  consciousness  of  this  failed  to  find  its  utterance 
in  a  thousand  shapes,  which,  fabulous  in  part  or  altoge- 
ther, did  yet  point  at,  and  bear  witness  for,  that  which 
should  be  wholly  true.' 

How,  then,  should  this  trait  have  been  wanting  here? 
We  may  say  with  reverence  that  it  scarcely  could  have 
been  absent  in  the  life  of  Him  with  whom  we  now  have 
to  do.  The  great  strife  between  light  and  darkness  which 
runs  through  all  history,  had  now  reached  at  once  its  very 


1  Thus  in  the  Mohammedan  tradition  —  which  is  also  a  Jewish, 
though  probably  a  later  Jewish  one— about  Abraham,  the  same  or 
similar  perils  beset  him  at  his  birth,  from  Nimrod,  whose  idolatrous  em- 
pire Abraham  shall  afterwards  overthrow.  (D'Herbelotj  Biblioth.  Orient* 
art.  Abraham.) 


80  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [MATT.  II.  14. 

deepest  ground  and  its  highest  height.     In  every  other 
witness  for  the  light  there  was  something,  oftentimes 
much,  of  the  darkness  which  he  went  forth  to  combat; 
but  here  was  light  in  which  was  no  darkness  at  all.     The 
whole  might  and  malice  of  hell  must  therefore  array  it- 
self against  this   purest  manifestation  of  the   opposing 
kingdom :  and  whatever  hostility  it  had  put  forth  against 
that   kingdom  of  light  before,  and  in  its  lower  forms, 
must  repeat  itself  with  a  deadlier  intensity  now  against 
its  crowning  manifestation  in  the  person  of  the  Son  of 
God.     In  this  respect  the  perils  of  our  Lord's  cradle  run 
parallel  to  those  with  which  his  ministry  began,  to  those 
of  his  temptation  ;  with,  of  course,  the  difference,  that  in 
these  the  enemy  makes  war  against  Christ's  natural,  in 
those,  against  his  spiritual,  life.     But  there  was  the  same 
needs   be  for  that  passage  of  his  life  as  for  this.     In 
Christ's  appearance  as  the  great  head  of  the  kingdom  of 
righteousness,  there  lay  the  necessity  that  He  should  en- 
counter, not  temptations  only,  which  every  man  has  done, 
but  the  Temptation — that  in  which  the  whole  force  of 
all  which  entices  and  allures  from  God  should  be  brought 
to  bear  against  Him.     Being  to  destroy  the  whole  king- 
dom of  darkness,  He  must  needs  encounter  at  the  very 
threshold  of  his  life — life  natural  and  life  spiritual — the 
whole  concentrated  might  and  malignity  of  the  Evil  one. 
Of  the  incidents  which  must  have  accompanied  the 
Lord's  flight  into  Egypt,  we  have  no  authentic  details  ; 
nor  yet  of  his  abode  there.     The  freer  and  more  wel- 
come, therefore,  the  field  which  this  portion  of  his  life 
offered  to  the  inventors  of  the  apocryphal  gospels ;  nor 
have  they  failed  to  avail  themselves  of  the  license  which 


MATT.  II.  14.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  81 

this  silence  of  sacred  history  afforded  them,  to  expatiate 
freely  in  the  region  of  fiction  which  thus  lay  open  be- 
fore them.^  Tradition  makes  the  place  where  the  Holy 
Family  tarried  during  their  abode  there  to  have  been 
Matarea,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  temple,  rival  to 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  which  Onias,  a  fugitive  priest, 
had  erected  at  Heliopolis  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before. 


*  In  the  Evangelium  InfantijB,  now  existing  only  in  an  Arabic  version, 
but  resting  probably  on  a  Syriac  original,  the  flight  into  Egypt,  and  the 
adventures  in  Egypt,  with  the  wonders  that  were  there  wrought  by  and 
in  behalf  of  the  Child  Jesus,  occupy  several  chapters,  c.  9 — 2G.  (Thilo's 
Codex  Apocryphus,  p.  73 — 95.)  These  miracles  and  adventuie?  are, 
for  the  most  part,  childish  and  unedifying  enough ;  yet  of  the  former 
there  is  one  to  which  Athanasius  once  alludes,  which  is  worthily  con- 
ceived—the fall  of  the  chief  idol  of  Egypt  at  the  presence  of  the  Lord 
in  the  Land,  c.  10,  though  the  hint  for  it  was,  doubtless,  obtained  from 
Isai.  xix.  1 ;  which  was  thought  to  find  its  fulfilment  therein;  "Behold, 
the  Lord  rideth  upon  a  swift  cloud,  and  shall  come  into  Egypt :  and 
the  idols  of  Egypt  shall  be  moved  at  his  presence."  (Cf)  1  Sam-  v.  3, 
4.)  This  apocryphal  book  makes  the  time  spent  in  Egypt  to  have  been 
three  years,  c.  26.  Unaware  of  the  real  facts  of  the  case,  which  would 
not  have  lent  even  a  semblance  to  the  charge,  and  that  the  time  passed 
in  Eg3'pt  was  that  of  the  Lord's  tenderest  infancy,  the  early  adversaries 
of  Christianity  were  wont  to  charge  Him  with  having  brought  his  mi^ 
raculous,  or  as  they  said,  magical,  powers  from  Egypt,  which  was  es- 
teemed the  very  home  of  these  secret  and  mysterious  arts,  the  land  to 
which,  if  you  divided  the  niagic  of  the  world  into  ten  parts,  nine  would 
rightly  belong.  Thus  the  heathen  in  Arnobius  (Adv.  Gent.,  1.  3,  c. 
43  :)  Magus  fait;  clandestinis  artibus  omnia  ilia  perfecit:  ^Egyptiorum 
ex  adytis  angelorum  potentia  nomina  et  remotas  furatus  est  disciplinas. 
Cf.  Origen,  Con.  Cels.,  L  i.,  c.  28,  38;  Eusebius,  Dem,  Evang.,  L  3,  c. 
6;  Eisenmenger,  Entdeckt.  Judenth,,  v.  i.  pp.  149,  1C6;  Schoettgen, 
lior.  Hebr.,  v.  2,  p.  090. 
6 


82  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  II.  15. 

But  in  this,  the  Lord's  abode  in  Egypt,  with  his  sub- 
sequent bringing  back  from  that  land,  the  Evangelist  notes 
the  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy:   He  '''■was  there  until  the 
death  of  Herod,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was 
spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Out  of  Egypt 
have  I  called  my  Son.''^     The  words  are  from  Hosea 
xi.    1 ;    for    Origen's    suggestion,^   whom    Eusebius   of 
Csesarea  follows,  that  they  may  be  drawn  from  Num. 
xxiv.  8,  "  God  brought   him  forth  out  of  Egypt,"  has 
found  no  acceptance;  as,  indeed,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
suppose   that  by  "/Ae  proplteC'  St.  Matthew  intended 
Balaam,  as  must  then  be  the  case.    Nor  is  it  to  be  doubted 
that,  in  their  primary  sense,  the  words  are  not  prophetic, 
but  historic,  and  recount  a  past  benefit  to  Israel,  which 
here,  as  in  other  places,  is  contemplated  in  its  totality,  and 
called  God's  son,  his  firstborn;  thai  they  have  reference 
to  his  earlier  goodness,  in  the  great  deliverance  of  the 
children  of  Israel  from  their  land  of  bondage.     The  fit- 
ness of  their  application  to  the  later  act  of  a  mightier 
preservation,  rests  on  the  fact  that  the  calling  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  at  that  earlier  day  did  stand  in  a  typical 
and  prophetic  relation  to  the  later  bringing  back  of  Him 
Avho  was  God's  own  Son  out  of  the  same  land.     As  this 
application  of  the  passage  has  often  been  spoken  against, 


*  In  this  quotation  St.  Matthew  departs  altogether  from  the  Seplua- 
gint,  which,  indeed,  would  not  at  all  have  answered  his  purpose,  (i; 
AiyuTiTOu  ^liTiKulicrdL  Ta  TiKvct  avTov,)  and  attaches  himself  more 
closely  to  the  Hebrew  original,  which  has  the  singular  he  needed, 
and  not  the  plural. 

^  In  Num.  Horn.  17. 


MATT.  II.  15.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  83 

— Julian  llie  apostate,  for  instance,  affirming  that  St. 
Matthew  had  endeavoured  to  impose  on  the  simplicity  of 
Gentile  readers,  and  palm  on  them  a  passage  as  prophe- 
tic of  Christ,  which,  in  truth,  had  no  relation  to  Him,i 
— it  will  not  be  lost  labour  a  little  to  consider  what  are 
the  analogies  which  explain  and  justify  the  application 
of  the  prophet's  words  to  the  matter  in  hand — what  right 
the  Evangelist  had  to  find,  in  that  glorious  event  in  the 
past  history  of  Israel,  a  prophecy  of  that  which  did  now 
a  second  time,  and  yet  more  gloriously,  fulfil  itself.  Of 
course,  to  make  these  analogies  more  than  a  mere  fanci- 
ful playing  with  the  earlier  Scripture  on  the  part  of  the 
later  Evangelist,  which  we  dare  not  attribute  to  him,  we 
must  believe  that  they  ground  themselves  in  the  inten- 
tions of  God,  and  are  not  merely  traced  by  the  ingenuity 
of  man:  we  must  believe  that  it  belonged  to  his  eternal 
purpose  that  the  earlier  should  in  manifold  wa)'s  prefigure 
the  later;  and  that  among  the  other  witnesses  for  a  Divine 
intention  running  through  the  whole  history  of  Israel, 
He  was  graciously  willing  that  this  should  not  be  want- 
ing. 

In  the  first  place,  tlien,  Israel  being  by  the  prophet 
called  God's  son,  is  contemplated,  not  on  its  fleshly  side, 
not  in  its  degeneracy,  and  as  it  fell  short  of  the  idea  for 


•  Jerome  (in  loc.:)  Ut  simplicifati  eoruni  qui  de  Gentihus  crediderant, 
illuderet.  A  most  unhappy  calumny,  as  Jerome  replies;  since,  apart 
from  the  question  of  fitness  or  unfitness  of  the  application  to  Christ,  that 
could  not  have  been  his  motive,  who  wrote  in  Hebrew,  and,  as  all  are 
agreed;  in  his  first  intention  not  for  Gentile  converts,  but  for  the  circle  of 
Hebrew  Christians  alone. 


84  THE  STAR  OF  THE   WISE  MEN.    [m ATT.  II.  16. 

which  it  was  constituted ;  but  in  so  far  as  it  realized  the 
idea  only  as  such  was  it  typical  of  Christ,  who  was  a 
concentrated  Israel,  bearing  this  very  name.  (Isai.  xlix. 
3.)  Alike  for  Israel  contemplated  thus,  and  for  Christ, 
Egypt  was  a  place  of  shelter.  They  went  down  thither 
when  in  danger  of  perishing  by  famine,  He  by  the  sword. 
It  was  in  each  case  not  by  the  will  of  man,  but  under  the 
direct  leadings  and  interpositions  of  God's  providence,  that 
He  and  they  sought  shelter  in  a  land,  which,  as  eminently 
the  land  of  idols,  the  unclean  land,  might  have  seemed 
beforehand,  the  unfittest  for  them.*  Both  were  thus 
withdrawn  for  a  season  from  the  true  land  which  was 
appointed  to  them  as  that  in  which  their  work  was  to  be 
accomplished,  but  to  which,  after  a  temporary  stay  in 
Egypt,  in  both  cases  they  returned;  Israel  being  called 
out  of  Egypt  to  show  forth  the  glory  of  God  to  the  world, 
as  in  a  like,  and  only  in  a  far  higher,  sense  was  Christ. 
In  either  case  God's  grace  and  providence  were  wonder- 
fidly  displayed,  alike  in  the  shelter  which  Egypt  yielded 
for  awhile,  and  in  the  calling  out  of  Egypt  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  glorious  destiny. 

"  Then  Herod,  when  he  saw  that  he  was  mocked  of 
the  wise  men,  was  exceeding  wroth'*^ — not  that  there  was 


*  Calvin:  Posset  enim  alioqui  hie  obstrepere  carnis  sensus,  Scilicet  ex 
^gypto  venturus  est  Redeinptor'?  Matthsous  ergo  non  esse  novum  vel 
insolens  admonet,  quod  Deus  Filiura  inde  sibi  vocet,  ac  potius  hoc  ad 
fidei  nostr®  confirmationem  valere,  quod  sicuti  olim,  ita  nunc  de  integro 
nascatur  ex  ^Egypto  Dei  Ecclesia.  Hoc  modo  est  diversum,  quod  olim 
totus  populus  ^gypti  ergastulo  inclusus  fuerit:  in  secunda  autera  re- 
deniptione  solum  Ecclesiae  caput  Christus  illic  latucrit ;  sed  qui  omnium 
salutem  et  vitam  in  se  inclusam  gestabat. 


MATT.  II.  16.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  85 

any  intention  on  their  parts  to  mock  him ;  all  that  they 
meant  was,  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  made  the  tools 
and  instruments  of  his  wickedness;  but  Scripture  here, 
as  in  so  many  other  -places — we  have  already  noticed  one 
— speaks  pheyiomenally ^  as  from  their  point  of  view,  with 
whom  at  the  moment  it  has  to  do.  As  it  does  this  here 
in  the  historical,  so  also  in  other  places  in  the  natural  and 
in  the  ethical  worlds.  In  the  natural,  when  it  is  content 
to  speak  in  the  common  language  of  men  of  the  sun  rising 
and  setting:  in  the  ethical,  when,  for  example,  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  "the  foolishness  of  God,"  "the  weakness 
of  God,"  (1  Cor.  i.  25,)  of  that  which  appears  to  men 
as  such;  when  he  so  far  puts  himself  for  the  moment  in 
their  place  as  to  speak  their  language.  Thus  is  it  here; 
Herod  counted  that  the  wise  men  mocked  him;  there 
was  most  truly  One  that  mocked  him  in  them,  but  his 
mockings  Herod  could  not  see ;  for  his  ways  are  far 
above  out  of  the  sight  of  such  men  as  this. 

"  The  king's  wrath  is  the  messenger  of  death,"  though 
not  now  the  death  of  Him  at  whom  he  aimed,  for  He 
was   "the  elect  among  ten  thousand."   (Cant.  v.  10.)^ 

*  Why  the  festival  of  the  Holy  Innocents  follows  so  hard  on  those  of 
St.  Stephen  and  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  and  what  was  the  Church's 
meaning  in  comhining  them  all  three  with  a  greater  festival  than  them 
all,  and  in  what  relation  they  stand  to  one  another,  and  to  it,  has  been 
often  drawn  out.  All  are  familiar  with  the  three  grades  of  martyrdom 
which  have  been  found  in  them,  in  St.  John,  and  in  St.  Stephen;  yet 
perhaps  not  so  much  so  with  apphcation  which  was  fondly  made  in  olden 
time  of  these  words  in  the  Canticles:  "  my  beloved  is  white  and  ruddy, 
the  chiefest  (or,  elect)  among  ten  thousand,"  (v.  10:)  to  the  matter  in 
hand.  This  Durandus  (Ration.  Div.  Off,  1.  7,  c  42,)  will  best  explain : 
Quemadmodum  regi  urbem  intranti  comites  additi  sunt,  sic  et  Ecclesia 


86  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [m ATT.  II.  IG. 

But  Herod,  counting  tliat  in  the  death  of  all,  tlie  one 
would  surely  be  included,  "  sent  forth,  and  sleio  all  the 
children  that  were  in  Bethlehem,  and  in  all  the  coasts 
thereof,  from  two  years  old  and  under,  according  to  the 
time  which  he  had  diligently  inquired  of  the  wise  men,^^ 

Thus  early  it  proved  true  that  Christ  brought  a  cross 
with  Him,  th^  to  be  drawn  into  his  circle  was  to  be 
drawn  into  the  mysterious  circle  of  pain.  What  fitter 
prologue  could  there  have  been  to  the  great  tragedy 
of  Christianity,  in  which  feeble  women,  innocent  chil- 
dren, wailing  mothers,  have  the  foremost  parts  allotted 
to  them  still?  And  inasmuch  as  Christ  Himself  suffered 
in  these  children  who  suffered  for  Him,  we  may  say 
that  here  already  the  sufTerings  of  Christ  commenced. 
And  if  to  any  it  should  seem  that  for  Him  was  reserved 
the  easier  lot,  that  He  lived  while  others  died,  yet  let  it 
be  remembered  that  He  was  spared  only  for  a  longer 
agony,  and  a  sharper  doom.  He  was  withdrawn  from 
that  sword,  and  from  its  momentary  pang,  that  He  might 
be  baptized  with  his  long  baptism  of  pain ;  and  that,  saved 
from  Herod's  sword.  He  might  one  day  hang  upon  Pi- 
late's cross. 

In  nothing,  certainly,  does  the  Church's  just  estimate 

Salvatori  mundum  ingresso  congruos  comites  voluit  adjunetos.  Qui 
autem  sunt  hi  comites?  Ea  de  re  in  Cantico  sic  dicitur;  Dilectus 
raeus,  h.  e.  puer  Jesus,  candidus,  et  rubicundus,  electus  ex  millibus. 
Ecclesia  igitur  Chrlsto  nato  comitem  rubicundum  sive  Stephanum,  qui 
rubicundum  pro  Christo  sanguinem  fudit,  comitem  candidum,  S.  Jo- 
anncm  Evangelistam,  quern  candor  virgineus  commendat,  et  multa 
millia  infantum  e  quibus  electus  est  puer  Jesus,  cum  reliqui  omnes  occi- 
dercntur  in  tractu  Bcthlehcmitico,  pulchre  reddidit. 


MATT.  II.  IG.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  V/ISE  MEN.  87 

of  the  relative  value  of  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  ma- 
nifest itself  more  clearly,  than  in  the  boldness  with  which 
she  has  dared  to  call  these  children  blessed,  the  little  day 
of  whose  earthly  life  was  so  abruptly  and  permanently 
closed.*  In  nothing  does  the  tenderness  of  the  Church, 
her  true  sense  of  the  overflowing  grace  of  Him  who  is 
her  Head,  come  out  more  strongly  than  in  the  light  in 
which  she  has  ever  regarded  them  and  their  deaths,  than 
in  the  tide  of  "Holy  Innocents"  which  she  has  not 
feared  to  give  them.  For  just  as,  to  take  a  slighter  ex- 
ample, it  has  been  confidently  assumed  of  Simon  the 
Cyrenian,  that  the  labour  and  the  ignominy  even  of  that 
compelled  bearing  of  Christ's  cross  (Matt,  xxvii.  32)  was 
afterwards  repaid  him  in  a  saving  knowledge  of  Him 
under  whose    burden  he    then  came,  whose  load   thus 

'  Dulces  animae,  quas  ante  nefas 

Letem  rapuit,  quas  subductas 

Vitse  pelago,  nunc  portus  habet; 

Non  vos  illic  spes  sollicitae, 

Non  ambitio,  non  dira  fames 

Exercetopum,  major  habenti; 

Non  S83vities,  grassata  semel, 

Quas  securos  invasit  adhuc, 

Finemque  dedit,  vixdum  expertis, 

Nosse  malorum.     Nunc  parta  quies, 

Interque  pias,  fati  immemores 

Loetosque  dies,  ducitis,  umbras. 
The  quotation  is  from  the  Herodes  Infanticida  of  Daniel  Heinsius, 
which  was  much  admired  in  its  day.  It  is  a  tragedy,  on  the  model  of 
Seneca's,  and  of  very  moderate  worth ;  but  these  lines,  making  part  of 
a  chorus  in  which  the  angels  gratulate  the  slain  children,  are  pretty, 
though  they  reach  not  the  earlier  strains  in  which  the  Church  has  cele- 
brated their  martyrdoms. 


88  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [maTT.  II.  10. 

far  he  liglitened  ;  so  lias  the  Church  been  bold  to  conclude 
that  it  was  not  for  nothing,  as  regarded  themselves,  that 
these  infants  were  thus  entangled  in  the  tragic  destinies 
of  their  Lord.  She  has  confidently  assumed,  that  near- 
ness to  Him  did  not  bring  to  them  merely  their  early 
doom  and  their  baptism  of  blood  ;  but  that,  unconscious 
martyrs  though  they  were,  still  martyrdom  was  imputed 
to  them;'  and  all  the  hard-hearted  arguments  to  the  con- 
Irary^  are  nothing  worth  against  that  true  instinctive  sense 


'  Cyprian,  Ep.  52  :  JEtas  necdum  habilis  ad  pugnam,  idonea  extitit 
ad  coronam. 

2  How  difTerent  these  from  the  language  of  affection  and  tenderness 
in  which  they  and  their  early  death  have  been>egdrded  by  the  elder  teach- 
ers of  the  Church.  Thus  Augustine,  from  whose  words  here  quoted 
we  infer  that  their  martyrdom  already  found  contradiction  in  his  day : 
(Serm.  373:)  O  parvuli  beati,  modo  nati,  nunquam  tentati,  nondum 
luctati,  jam  coronati.  lile  de  vestra  corona  dubitaverit  in  passione  pro 
Christo,  qui  etiam  baptismum  parvulis  prodesse  non  existimat  Christi, 
And  the  autkor  of  a  sermon  that  used  to  be  ascribed  to  Augustine:  O 
quam  beataaetas,  qute  necdum  Christum  potest  loqui..  et  jam  pro  Christo 
meretur  occidi.  Quam  feliciter  nati,  quibus  in  primo  nascendi  limine 
fEterna  vita  obviam  venit !  Incurrunt  quidem  inter  ipsa  primordia  ac- 
ceptae  lucis  periculum  et  finem  salutis,  sed  de  ipso  protinus  fine  capiunt 
principia  aeternitalis.  Immaturi  quidem  videntur  ad  mortem,  sed  feliciter 
moriuntur  ad  vitam.  Vixdum  gustarunt  praesentem,  statim  transeunt 
ad  futuram.  Nondum  egressi  infantine  cunas,  et  jam  perveniunt  ad  co- 
ronas. Rapiuntur  quidem  a  complexibus  matrum,  sed  redduntur 
gremiis  angelorum.  And  once  more:  .lure  dicuntur  martyrum  flores, 
quos  in  medio  frigore  infidelitatis  exortos  velut  primas  erumpentis  eccle- 
sise  gemmas  qusedam  persecutionis  pruina  decoxit.  Thus,  too,  Leo  the 
Great,  (Serm.  31 :)  Quasi  jam  diceret:  Sinite  parvulos  venire  ad  me, 
lalium  est  enim  regnufta  coelorum;  nova  gloria  coronabat  infantes,  et  de 
initiis  suls  parvulorum  primordia  consecrabat :  ut  disceretur  neminem 
hnminuin  divini  incapacem  esse  sacramenti,  quandn  etiam  ilia  a;tap  gloritp 
Of'Ct  apta  martyrii. 


MATT.  II.  16.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  89 

out  of  which  it  has  been  ever  felt  that  what  they  thus 
endured  for  Christ's  sake  was  repaid  them  again;  that 
for  them  also,  martyrs  but  in  deed,  that  word  did  yet 
come  true,   "  Near  to  the  sword,  is  near  also  to  God."' 

But  the  "  tiuo  years  old  and  under'''' — this  superfluous 
cruelty,  as  it  has  seemed,  of  Ilerod,  this  bloody  execution, 
directed  not  merely  against  the  new-born  infants,  but 
against  all  the  male  children  up  to  two  years  of  age,  has 
at  all  times  perplexed  many.  And  from  this  they  have 
derived  one  of  their  chief  arguments,  who  place  the  visit 
of  the  Magi  not  during  the  first  days  of  the  Lord's  earthly 
existence,  but  very  much  later.  On  this  there  will  be 
occasion  by  and  by  to  speak :  for  the  present,  it  will  be 
sufficient  to  observe  that  the  ^'■two  years  old'^  need  not 
compel  us  to  any  such  conclusion.  What  Herod  wanted 
was  to  make  sure  of  reaching  the  dreaded  Child.  Some 
time  must  have  elapsed  while  he  was  waiting  for  the  re- 
turn of  the  wise  men,  and  before  he  could  persuade  him- 
self that  he  was  mocked  by  them ;  some  more,  perhaps, 
before  he  determined  on  this  method  of  delivering  himself 
from  his  fears.  The  emissaries  that  he  employed  were 
not  such  as  he  could  trust  to  make  very  nice  distinctions. 
He  was  determined  there  should  be  no  mistakes,  and 
gave  himself,  therefore,  this  broad  margin,  lest,  had  he 
calculated  too  nearly ,2  the  one  at  whom  he  aimed  should 
by  some  chance  have  escaped  him.  The  same  determi- 
nation, at  all  costs,  to  make  all  sure,  appears  in  his  com- 


•  Ignatius  (Ad.  Smyrn.,  4:)  ^Eyyvs  /uaxatQag,  iyyvg  ©sou. 
^  So  Grotius:  Herodes  omni  modo  cavens  ne  puer  elaberetur,  latius 
KEvitiam  extendit. 


90  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  16. 

mand  that  the  children  should  be  slam,  not  in  Bethlehem 
alone,  to  which  yet  the  answer  of  the  Sanhedrim  alone 
had  pointed,  but  "  zn  all  the  coasts  thereof.''^ 

The  assailants  of  Holy  Scripture  have  at  different  times 
urged  against  the  credibility  of  this  whole  account,  the 
extreme  unlikelihood  that  Herod,  to  whom  none  can  deny 
the  character  of  a  sagacious  and  far-sighted  politician, 
should  have  trusted  to  such  a  weak  device  as  this,  when 
he  might  so  much  more  securely  have  laid  hands  on  the 
young  Child;  and  they  give  us  not  seldom  to  understand 
how  much  more  effectually  they  would  have  conducted  the 
affair,  if  it  had  been  in  their  hands.  But  although,  ar- 
guing from  the  result,  men  have  called  it  this  weak  device, 
did  that  deserve  to  be  so  considered,  which  would  have 
perfectly  succeeded,  had  not  the  providence  of  God  di- 
rectly interfered  to  defeat  and  bring  it  to  nothing?  How 
much  more  certain  were  they  who  sought  the  Child  in 
love  to  discover  Him,  than  he  would  be,  seeking  Him 
in  hate;  how  much  more  prudent  to  use  their  love  for 
his  own  ends,  than  by  any  premature  step  to  cause  the 
object  of  his  fear  to  be  for  ever  withdrawn  from  his  power, 
— not  to  say,  that  there  must  have  been  every  motive  at 
work  in  him  which  should  induce  him  to  conceal  from 
the  people  his  hatred  of  David's  Son,  and  to  proceed 
against  Him  by  plot  and  stratagem  rather  than  by  open 
violence;  and  who  would  here  serve  him  better  than  these 
harmless  enthusiasts  from  the  East,  as  he  must  have 
esteemed  them? 

And  even  if  this  was  such  a  Vv'cak  device,  and  one  sure 
to  fail,  is  not  this  the  very  character  of  wickedness,  that 
it  makes  the  most  inexplicable  oversights?     Does  not 


MATT.  II.  16.]      THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  91 

this  psychological  fact  repeat  itself  evermore  in  the  world's 
history,  that  its  cunning  fails  at  the  critical  moment  when 
there  was  most  need  that  it  should  stand?  There  are 
some,  indeed,  who  will  never  make  allowance  for  the 
wicked  acting  blindly.  They  do  not  at  heart  believe  that 
which  Origen  says  on  this  very  conduct  of  king  Herod, 
that  wickedness  in  its  very  nature  is  something  blind. i 
Yet  who  can  read  the  history  of  great  criminals  without 
meeting  there  the  most  striking  confirmation  of  this  fact 
— devices  woven  in  great  measure  with  the  most  won- 
drous skill  and  foresight,  and  yet  failing,  and  grossly 
failing,  in  some  single  point,  omitting  some  most  obvious 
precaution?  There  is  something  which  they  have 
not  taken  into  calculation.  They  have  worked  their 
sum  with  only  the  leaving  out  of  one  factor;  yet  that 
one  sufficient  to  disturb  the  whole  result;  for  that  one  is 
God;  even  He  who  "  taketh  the  wise  in  their  own 
craftinesss ;"  who  "  lurneth  the  way  of  the  ungodly  up- 
side down." 

But,  further,  it  has  excited  the  surprise  of  some,  nor 
has  this  circumstance  been  left  unused  by  the  adversaries 
of  the  faith,  that  no  mention  should  occur  of  so  remark- 
able an  incident  as  this  in  profane  history;  and,  most  of 
all,  that  all  allusion  to  it  should  be  wantiiiff  in  Josephus, 
who  is  otherwise  so  large  in  narrating  me  life,  and  so 
free  in  noticing  the  atrocities,  of  Herod. 

Yet  it  is  not  entirely  true  that  there  is  no  allusion  to  it 
in  profane  history.  Certainly  some  have  affirmed  that 
Macrobius,  to  whom  alone  we  are  indebted  for  such,  was 

*  Tv<^?.or  yag  tieo-tiv  /;  7rSl'^;gfa.     (Con.  Cels.,  i.  CI.) 


92  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [m ATT. II.  16. 

no  heathen,  but  a  Christian,  and  that  his,  therefore,  was 
evidently  no  independent  witness;  or,  if  they  could  not 
prove  this,  they  have  wished  that  the  question  whether 
he  were  a  Christian  or  heathen  should  be  considered  as 
an  unsettled  one;  but  the  internal  proofs  of  his  belonging 
to  the  remains  of  the  heathen  party  are  so  strong,  or,  at 
any  rate,  so  sufficient,  that  it  is  difficult  not  to  suspect 
some  motive  at  work  in  those  who  have  stood  out  against 
evidence  so  clear.^  He  then,  this  Heathen  Grammarian, 
writing  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  in  a  collec- 
tion of  the  jests  and  wilty  sayings  of  illustrious  men,  re- 
cords this  among  the  keen  sayings  of  Augustus :  That 
when  he  heard  that  among  the  children  under  two  years 
old,  whom  Herod,  king  of  the  Jews,  had  commanded  to 
be  slain  in  Syria,  his  own  son  had  been  included,  he  ob- 
served, "  It  is  better  to  be  Herod's  swine  than  his  sonJ^^ 
We  catch  a  slight  echo  of  this  sanglnnt  pun  in  the  simi- 
larity of  our  words,  "son"  and  '•^ swine :^^  it  does  not, 
that  is,  disappear  so  entirely  in  English  as  it  does  in  the 
Latin  of  Macrobius.  Scaliger  has  called  this  bitter  sar- 
casm of  Augustus  into  doubt;  he  wonders,  at  least,  how 
it  could  have  fallen  from  him,  and  on  the  very  insufficient 
ground,  that  Augustus  had  himself  given  Herod  leave  to 
execute  his  ^s.  But  if  ever  there  was  a  saying  that 
bore  the  stamp  of  being  his  to  whom  it  has  been  attri- 

*  See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt.,  art.  Macrobius;  and  Bahr's 
Gesch.  Rom.  Literatur,  p.  600. 

'^Saturn.,  1.  2,  c.  4:  Quum  audisset  [Augustus]  inter  pueros,  quos 
in  Syria  Herodes  rex  Judaeorum  intra  bimatum  jussit  intei-fici,  filium 
quoque  ejus  occisura ;  ait,  melius  est  Herodis  porcum  [uv]  quam  fiiium 
[uiiv.J 


MATT.  II.  16.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  93 

buted,  it  is  this.  How  much  of  the  Roman,  and  of 
Augustus  in  particular,  speaks  out  in  it:  his  own  affected, 
perhaps  in  part  real,  clemency;  (he  had  urged  Herod, 
even  while  he  gave  him  the  permission,  not  to  put  his 
sons  to  death ;)  his  contempt  for  the  Jew,  and  for  his 
ceremonial  law — most  of  all,  for  his  abstinence  from 
swine's  flesh,  the  favourite  meat  of  the  Roman  ;*  yea,  his 
very  ill  will  at  having  had  his  consent  asked  and  obtained 
for  such  atrocities  as  these; — all  of  this  seems  to  find 
its  utterance  here. 

But  although  the  mot  may  thus  be  considered  as  itself 
lifted  above  all  suspicion,  and  is  found  recorded  in  the 
writings  of  a  heathen  author,  I  yet  cannot  consider  the 
confirmation  of  the  sacred  history  which  it  yields,  so  real 
as  some  have  been  inclined  to  count  it.  Living  as  Ma- 
crobius  did  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  that  is, 
when  the  knowledge  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  and  of 
the  facts  wliich  they  recorded  had  penetrated  every  where, 
even  into  those  iew  fortresses  of  heathendom  which  still 
remained,  such  as  the  neoplatonism  to  which  Macrobius 
was  himself  probably  addicted,  there  is  no  sufficient 
ground  for  affirming  that  this  is  an  independent  witness 
for  the  truth  of  this  event;  or  that  his  knowledge  of  it 
was  derived  elsewhere  than  from  Scripture  itself.  In  all 
probability  it  was  drawn  mediately  or  directly  from 
thence.^     It  will  be  observed  that  the  emperor's  jest  is 


'  Juvenal  (Sat  14,  98,)  describing  the  Jews:— 

Nee  distare  putant  humana  came  suillam. 
'  The  intra  bimatum  looks  wonderfully  as  if  it  had  grown  out  of  the 
ttro  diBzo-ji  Kut  KjcTwrego)  of  the  Evangelist. — Of  slill  slighter  worth  as 


94 


THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  16. 


complete,  even  after  all  that  refers  to  the  massacre  of  the 
Innocents  is  withdrawn  from  it,  that  this  massacre  adds 
nothing  to  its  point — that  point  lying  in  the  fact  that  he 
who  would  not  kill  a  swine,  had  put  to  death  three  of  his 
own  sons;  and,  farther,  that  the  connecting  link  by 
which  the  massacre  of  the  children  at  Bethlehem  is 
brought  into  relation  with  this  saying  is  one  historically 
inexact;  namely,  the  assumption  on  the  part  of  Macro- 
bius,  that  among  the  children  who  there  perished  was 
one  of  Herod's  own;^  for  the  supposition  of  Baronius 
and  some  others,^  which  has  no  other  ground  than  this 
present  passage,  that  there  was  such  a  child  of  his, 
whom,  by  a  just  judgment  of  God,  he  included  either 
intentionally  or  by  accident  in  this  slaughter,  this  suppo- 
sition, however  striking,  is  yet  without  a  shadow  of  his- 
toric probability.    How  Macrobius  came  to  confuse  these 


an  independent  heathen  testimony,  is  the  passage  about  the  Magians 
and  the  Star,  so  often  quoted  from  Chalcidius,  who  himself  was  also  a 
Neo-Flatonistj  flourishing  probably  in  the  sixth,  though  some  have 
placed  him  in  the  fourth  century.  The  passage  which  begins:  Est  quo- 
que  alia  sanctior  et  venerabilis  historia,  is  but  a  reproduction,  in  weaker 
outline,  of  the  sacred  narrative.  See  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Biog. 
under  his  name,  which  considers  it  uncertain  whether  Chalcidius  was 
not  a  Christian  after  all. 

*  Some  indeed  have  attempted  to  make  inter  pueros,  "  at  tlie  same 
time  as  the  children,"  with  allusion  to  the  fact  that  Antipater's  execu- 
tion must  have  been  very  nearly  contemporaneous.  So  J.  Masson,  in 
an  Essay  of  but  moderate  value,  The  Slaughter  of  the  Children  ia  Beth- 
lehem as  an  historical  fact  vindicated,  Lond.,  1728,  p.  23. 

^  Keppler  for  instance,  (De  Anno  Nat.  Christi,p.  130;)  Credibile  in- 
fantem  et  ipsum,  ex  pellice  Bethlecniilica.  Herod  was  now  seventy 
years  old. 


MA.TT.  II.  10.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  95 

two  events,  Herod's  putting  to  death  of  his  own  sons, 
and  murdering  the  children  at  Bethlehem,  it  is  not  very- 
hard  to  see  :  the  sons  were  put  to  death  under  the  charge 
of  affecting  their  father's  throne  and  life ;  and  these  chil- 
dren, lest  a  competitor  to  that  throne,  and  one  that  should 
endanger  that  life,  should  be  found  among  them. 

I  do  not  think,  then,  that  we  can  honestly  draw  his 
testimony  into  a  confirmation  of  the  scriptural  account. 
But  if  we  do  not  find  a  confirmation  therein,  neither  ^o 
we  need  one.  Did  we  regard  St.  Matthew  merely  in  the 
light  of  an  historian  to  be  believed  until  he  shall  prove 
himself  unworthy  of  credit,  there  would  be  nothing  here 
which  we  might  not  readily  receive,  as  we  receive  ten 
thousand  other  events  of  ancient  history,  if  credible  in 
themselves,  on  the  faith  of  some  single  witness.  There 
is  nothing  in  this  massacre  alien  from  the  character  of 
Herod. ^  Any  one  who  is  acquainted  with,  and  calls  to 
mind,  the  cruel  precautions  of  eastern  monarchs,  in 
times  past  and  present,  in  regard  of  possible  competitors 
for  their  throne,  often  making  an,  entire  desolation,  even 
of  their  own  kindred  round  them,  will  see  in  this  what 
many  an  eastern  despot  would  have  done — what  cer- 
tainly a  Herod   would  not  have    shrunk  from  doing. '^ 


^  Schlosser,  the  historian,  who  certainly  would  not  count  himself 
under  any  obligation  to  receive  a  tact  because  he  found  it  in  the  Bible, 
acknowledges  the  internal  probability  of  this  massacre. 

=  The  sense  of  the  worth  of  life  while  it  is  as  yet  undeveloped,  that  is 
of  child's  life,  can  hardly  be  said  to  belong  in  any  very  high  degree  ex- 
cept to  Christianity.  How  little  the  moral  feeling  of  antiquity  revolted 
from  precautions  such  as  Herod's,  where  great  political  interests  seemed 
at  stake,  we  have  evidence  in  the  story,  and  the  evidence  is  equally  good, 


96  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [maTT.  II.  1  G. 

The  man  who  could  put  his  wife  and  three  of  his  own 
sons  to  death,  who  made  a  solitude  round  him  by  the 
slaughter  of  so  many  of  his  friends,  who  could  kill,  under 
semblance  of  sport,  as  he  did,  the  youthful  high  priest 
Aristobulus;'  who,  when  he  was  himself  dying  by  hor- 
rible and  loathsome  diseases,  so  far  from  being  softened, 
or  owning  the  hand  of  God,  which  every  one  else  saw 
therein,  could  devise  such  a  devilish  wickedness  as  that 
narrated  by  Josephus,  to  secure  weeping  and  lamentation 
at  his  death,^  would  have  had  little  scruple  in  conceiving 
or  carrying  out  an  iniquity  such  as  the  sacred  historian 
lays  here  to  his  charge. 

Nor  need  the  silence  of  Josephus  surprise  us.     In 

whether  that  be  true  or  false,  which  Julius  Marathus,  the  freedman  of 
Augustus,  told  in  his  life  of  the  emperor,  and  which  Suetonius  (Octa- 
vius,  89,)  has  preserved  for  us.  Among  the  indications  of  the  empe- 
ror's future  greatness  there  went  such  distinct  portents  before  his  birth, 
that  nature  was  about  to  bring  forth  a  king  of  the  Roman  people,  that 
the  senate  enacted,  no  child  bom  during  the  following  year  should  be 
reared  (senatum  exterritum  censuisse,  ne  quis  illo  anno  genitus  educa- 
retur:)  however,  those  senators  whose  wives  were  then  pregnant  hin- 
dered the  final  carrying  of  the  bill  to  the  treasury. 

'  Josephus,  Antt.,  xv.  3. 3. 

"^  It  troubled  him  greatly  to  anticipate  the  joy  which  there  would  be 
among  the  Jews  at  his  death  :  and  with  the  purpose  of  turnmg  this  joy 
into  weeping,  he  got  together  from  every  city  the  chief  personages  of  tlie 
land,  whom  he  shut  up  in  the  hippodrome  of  Jericho,  where  he  lay 
dying.  He  then  obtained  a  promise  from  his  sister  Salome  and  her 
husband,  that  the  instant  he  expired  these  all  should  be  slain,  so  that, 
although  none  wept  and  lamented  him,  there  should  yet  be  abundant 
weeping  and  lamentation  at  his  death.  His  intentions  were  not  better 
fulfilled  than  those  of  tyrants  after  their  deaths  commonly  are.  (B.  J., 
?.?.,  G,  8.) 


MATT.  II.  16.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  97 

the  first  place,  it  is  probable  that  we  all  unconsciously 
exaggerate  very  much  the  number  of  those  who  perished 
in  this  slaughter.  A  small  country  town,  (St.  John  calls 
it  a  xcoixt^,  vii.  62,)  even  with  the  inclusion  of  its  neigh- 
bourhood, could  have  yielded  no  such  multitude  of  male 
children  under  two  years  old,  as  many  take  for  granted. 
In  the  Romish  martyrologies  they  swell,  indeed,  to  an 
army  of  martyrs  in  themselves.  The  numbers  suggested 
are  sometimes  such  as  almost  to  provoke  a  smile.  Thus 
an  expositor  of  that  Church  makes  mention  of  some 
who  had  estimated  the  number  of  the  slain  at  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-four  thousand  ;  Rev.  xiv.  1,  being  the 
motive  to  this  particular  number.  He,  however,  him- 
self cannot  believe  that  a  little  country  town  could  have 
supplied  so  many,  and  is  content  with  supposing  them  to 
have  been  fourteen  thousand.  In  all  likelihood,  they 
were  very  much  fewer  than  a  hundredth  part  of  this 
number,  though  a  good  many  more  than  the  "ten  or 
twelve,"  at  which  number  some  have  rated  them.  Such 
an  act  would  have  been  but  a  drop  of  water  in  the  great 
sea  of  Herod's  cruelties  and  crimes  ;  taken,  that  is,  apart 
from  its  true  connexion,  and  not  seen  as  the  endeavour 
to  kill  the  Lord's  Christ.  And  there  was  every  motive 
in  Herod  to  induce  him  to  keep  out  of  sight  this  con- 
nexion;' and  not  merely  this,  but  to  effect  the  slaughter 
itself  with  as  little  noise  as  possible.     As  at  first  he  sent 


*  Spanheim,  in  his  excellent  Dubia  Evang.,  Ixxvi.,  has  suggested  this : 
Quid  obstat  etiam  quominus  dicamus  stragem  illam  dissiraulatam  forte 
a  tyranno,  et  alio  prsetextu,  alio  titulo  editum,  et  militum  potius  vcl 
satellitum  furori  ascriptam  quam  flerodi: 


98  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  17,  18. 

for  the  wise  men  ^^ privily, ^^  (ver.  7.)  so  there  is  every 
reason  to  conclude  that  these  murders  also  were  ac- 
complished as  secretly  as  the  nature  of  the  things  would 
allow;  the  children  were  exactly,  as  we  say,  made  away 
with.  Every  reason  existed  why  Herod  should  have 
sought  to  effect  their  deaths  with  the  exciting  of  as  little 
attention  as  possible.  No  tyrant  willingly  confesses  that 
he  trembles  upon  his  throne ;  to  which  we  may  add,  that 
Herod  in  all  things  sought  to  flatter  the  nation's  expecta- 
tions of  a  Messiah,  and  would  not  have  ventured  thus 
openly  to  show  and  to  avow  his  deadly  hatred  to  David's 
son.  To  the  Christian  historian,  the  death  of  these  little 
ones,  that  died  for  Him  who  one  day  should  die  for  them 
and  for  all,  had  the  deepest  significance,  and  must  needs 
find  place  in  history.  But  how  easily  might  it  have 
escaped  the  notice  of  the  Jewish  historian  ;  or,  even  if 
he  had  known  it,  how  certainly  must  he,  traitor  as  he 
was  to  the  dearest  hope  of  his  nation,  to  its  hope  of  a 
Christ,  have  missed,  or,  not  missing,  have  yet  refused  to 
acknowledge,  the  connexion  which  alone  would  have 
given  it  a  right  to  a  place  in  history.^ 

*'  Then  was  fulfilled  that  which  was  spoken  by  Jeremy 
the  prophet,  saying,  In  Rama  was  there  a  voice  heard, 
lamentation,  and  weeping,  and  great  mourning,  Rachel 
loeeping  for  her  children,  and  would  not  he  comforted, 
because  they  are  noty     No  one  will,  I  suppose,  affirm 

*  There  are  two  essays  devoted  to  this  subject,  which,  however,  I 
have  not  had  the  opportunity  of  consulting.  M.  Reis :  Josephi  silen. 
tiura  Evang.  Hist,  non  noxium  esse,  Altorf,  1730.  And  Vollborth, 
De  causis  cur  Josephus  csedem  puerorum  Bethleh.  silentio  prseterierit, 
Gott.  1788. 


MATT.  II.  17,  18.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  99 

that  this  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  (xxxi.  15)  was  then  ex- 
clusively, or  then  first  fulfilled,  in  that  bitter  wailing  of 
these  Bethlehemite  mothers  over  their  slaughtered  infants; 
or  deny  that  the  prophecy  had  a  most  real  fulfilment  be- 
fore, in  the  desolation  of  that  whole  region  through  the 
carrying  away,  by  Nebuzaradan  of  the  children  of  the 
captivity.  Nor  ought  we,  I  think,  to  affect  to  find  no 
difficulty  in  that  *♦  Then  was  fulfilled*'  with  which  St. 
Matthew  claims  the  prophecy  as  belonging  to  the  history 
which  he  is  telling.  Yet,  as  I  cannot  but  think,  a  great 
part  of  the  difficulty  of  the  passage,  and  of  its  seemingly 
only  remote  relation  to  the  matter  which  the  Evangelist 
has  in  hand,  springs  from  our  stopping  short  wjth  the 
words  which  he  actually  quotes,  and  not  viewing  them  in 
and  with  the  context  wherein  they  stand  in  Jeremiah. 
It  is,  for  many  reasons,  hardly  possible  to  suppose  that 
St.  Matthew  intended  his  readers  to  stop  short  with  the 
words  he  cites,  and  not  to  embrace  the  whole  prophecy 
in  their  minds,  and  silently  to  extend  his  "//ten  was  fuU 
filled'''  to  it  all.  Merely  the  desolation  of  those  mothers, 
merely  the  fact  that  there  were  such,  refusing  to  be  com- 
forted, this  had  no  such  deep  religious  significance  in  it, 
as  should  have  claimed  for  it  a  place  in  St.  Matthew's 
narration  ;  but  the  sorrow  which  is  turned  into  joy — the 
tears  which  God  causes  to  flow,  and  then  himself  pre- 
sently wipes  away  from  the  eyes — the  life  which  he 
brings  out  of  death, — these  have  a  very  profound  signi- 
ficance :  and  of  such  gracious  dealings  of  God,  chasten- 
ing, yet  not  killing,  casting  down,  yet  not  utterly  destroy- 
ing, Jeremiah  is  there  plainly  speaking. 

When,  indeed,  the  ten  tribes  had  been  carried  away 


1 00  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  1 7,  1 8, 

captive,  and  now  the  two  were  submitted  to  a  like  doom, 
it  must  have  seemed  as  if  all  was  over,  as  if  Israel's  part 
in  the  world's  history  were  now  played  out,  as  if  its  hop© 
had  utterly  perished  from  the  Lord.  And  the  better  to 
express  this,  Rachel,  as  a  faithful  mother  in  Israel,  is 
introduced  by  the  prophet — the  personification  does  not 
belong  to  the  heart,  but  only  to  the  outer  clothing,  of  the 
prophecy,  being  probably  suggested  by  the  nearness  of 
Rachel's  grave  to  Rama,^  the  spot  where  the  forlorn  band 
of  captives,  bound  for  a  distant  land,  were  assembled, 
(Jer.  xl.  1,) — she  is  introduced  as  though  disturbed  in 
her  grave  by  this  bearing  away  of  her  children,  these 
*'sons  of  her  sorrow"  (Gen.  xxxv.  18,)  into  a  hopeless 
captivity.  She  has  travailed  for  them,  and  given  them 
life  with  her  death,  in  vain.  She  will  hear  of  no  better 
hope ;  she  refuses  to  be  comforted.  And  yet  this  is  but 
a  passing  note  of  sadness,  presently  swallowed  up  in  the 
more  prevailing  harmonies  of  the  chapter.  The  Lord 
himself  is  her  comforter:  He  bids  her  to  refrain  her 
voice  from  weeping  and  her  eyes  from  tears.  The  chil- 
dren whom  she  accounts  lost  shall  yet  come  again  from 
the  land  of  the  enemy,  (ver.  16,  17.)  So  was  it  then: 
and  now  once  more  that  lamentation  is  renewed.  To 
the  weeping  mothers  of  a  later  day — those,  too,  gathered 
up  and  personified  in  the  same  image  of  Rachel  mourn- 
ing for  her  lost  offspring—to  them,  also,  it  must  have 
seemed  that  they  had  brought  forth  in  vain — children  for 


'  Rama  was  only  a  short  half-day's  journey  from  Bethlehem;  (Judg. 
5iix.  2,  9, 13;)  quite  near  to  which  was  Rachel's  grave.     (Gen.  xxxv. 

a) 


MATT.  II.  17,  18.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  lOl 

the  murderer.  And  as  many  of  them  as  were  true  mo- 
thers in  Israel,  waiting  the  consolation  of  Israel,  the  bit- 
terest of  their  wailing  must  have  been,  that  with  their 
own,  He  also  had  perished,  (for  they  could  not  have  sup- 
posed it  otherwise,)  that  should  have  redeemed  Israel,  in 
whom  its  whole  hope  centred,  and  all  its  blessed  future 
was  laid  up.  With  their  sons,  the  sword  of  the  false 
Idumean  had  found  out  also  the  royal  Child,  even  the 
Son  of  David.  And  in  the  sense  of  their  own  and  of 
Israel's  wo,  they  "  would  not  he  comforted.''^  Their 
children  "  were  not;"  so,  at  least,  to  them  it  seemed. 
And  yet  they  were  ;  for  thus,  by  the  aid  of  the  pro|)het, 
we  must  complete  the  thought  of  the  Evangelist ;  they 
were,  for  He  was.  He  had  escaped  the  tyrant's  sword,  in 
whom  alike  they  and  the  mothers  that  bare  them  should 
find  their  true  life,  and  with  that  life,  a  recompense  for 
this,  as  for  every  pangi  He  was,  who  was  the  Resurrec- 
tion and  the  Life,  and  therefore  they  should  yet  come 
again  from  the  land  of  the  enemy,  the  land  of  darkness 
and  the  grave,  to  which  they  had  thus  prematurely  been 
borne.' 


*  Spanheim  does  not  seem  to  me  to  have  fully  seized  the  force  and 
purpose  of  the  citation,  yet  to  have  done  so  more  nearly  than  most. 
(Dub.  Evang.,  82 — 84 :)  Sic  etiara  tacite  a  MatthaBo  citatione  cladis 
illius  et  planctus  insinuantur  lectoribus  consolationes  eximiae  quse  abun- 
dant toto  illo  capite,  de  reiiquiarura  conservatione,  et  amore  Dei  in 
suum  populurn,  ut  ostenderet  ?»Iatthseus,  niliilo  magis  strage  ilia  de- 
tractum  fuisse  Dei  populo  vel  regno  Christi,  ac  olim  deportatione  populi 
in  captivitatem;  Deum  reliquias  suas  et  semen  sanctum  semper  serva- 
turum,  et  curaturum,  ut  tandem  emergat,  et  ab  ipso  ferro  tyrannorum 
nova  sumat  incrementa. 


102  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  17, 18, 

I  have  deferred  to  the  present  moment  a  question 
which  cannot  be  overlooked  altogether, — namely,  in 
what  period  of  the  history  of  the  Infancy  are  the  visit 
of  the  Magi,  and  the  subsequent  flight  into  Egypt,  to  find 
their  place! — or,  supposing  that  we  separate  them  in 
time  from  one  another,  their  places?  In  the  ancient 
Church  it  was  almost  universally  held  that  the  day  on 
which  the  wise  men  appeared  at  Bethlehem  was  the 
thirteenth  inclusive  after  the  Saviour's  birth;  and  the 
25th  of  December  being  accepted  as  the  day  of  the  Na- 
tivity, the  6th  of  January  was  consequently  kept  as  this 
Epiphany,  or  Manifestation  of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles. ^ 
Not  a  few  in  modern  times  have  taken  the  same  view, 
or  at  least  have  placed  this  visit  before  the  presentation 
of  Christ  in  the  temple, — that  is,  within  the  first  forty 
days  of  the  Saviour's  life.  (Lev.  xii.  2,  4.)^  At  the  same 
time  most  of  the  modern  harmonists  place  the  visit  of 
the  Magi  later, — that  is,  after  the  presentation  in  the  tem- 
ple ;  and  some  very  much  after  it,  so  that  it  shall  not 
have  taken  place  till  the  Child  Jesus  had  reached,  or 
nearly  had  reached,  his  second  year.  It  is  a  matter  of 
necessity  that  those  who  take  this  last  view  should  ac- 
cept the  calculations  which  place  our  Lord's  birth  as  far 
back  as  the  year  747  u.  c. ;  for  since  Herod  died  quite 
early  in  750,  only  so  will  room  be  allowed  for  events 
which  must  have  happened  before  that  event.     There  is 


*  Augustine,  Serm.  203,  §  1. 

^  So  Petavius,  Grotius,  Chemnitz,  Jansenius,  and  Spanheim,  who 
in  his  Dub.  Evangel.,  25,  26,  weighs  the  whole  matter  in  the  main  ex- 
cellently well. 


MATT.  II.  17,  18.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  103 

no  reason  why  others  should  not  combine  this  dale  of 
747  with  their  schemes  also,  but  for  this  scheme  no  later 
date  can  possibly  be  adopted. 

The  advantages  of  placing  the  wise  men's  visit  at  so 
late  a  period,  and  the  inducements  thereunto,  which, 
however,  I  will  say  beforehand  do  not  seem  to  me  suffi- 
cient to  outweigh  the  inconveniences,  are  chiefly  these; 
— 1.  There  is  no  need,  then,  to  set  an  interval  of  time 
between  the  departure  of  the  Magi  and  the  warning  to 
Joseph  that  he  should  take  the  young  child  and  flee ; 
which  interval  there  certainly  does  not,  on  tlie  face  of 
St.  Matthew's  narrative,  appear  to  have  been ;  (ver.  1 2, 
13;)  however  that  does  not  absolutely  exclude  it. 
2,  Time  is  thus  allowed  for  the  Magi  to  have  travelled 
from  their  distant  homes,  which  it  hardly  is,  if  we  sup- 
pose them  to  have  stood  by  the  cradle  on  the  thirteenth 
day  after  the  Nativity.  The  journey  from  beyond  the 
Euphrates  to  Jerusalem  was  not  ordinarily  one  of  less 
than  three  or  four  months.'  3.  Those  who  set  the  visit 
toward  the  end  of  the  second  year,  find  here  an  explana- 
tion of  that  which,  according  to  the  common  explanation, 
they  find  inconceivable, — namely,  the  slaughter  of  chil- 
dren of  two  years  old  for  the  purpose  of  reaching  an  in- 
fant new-born. 

Such  are  their  chief  grounds;  yet  the  disadvantages 
of  this  arrangement,  in  my  mind,  more  than  countervail 


'■  Ezra  is  four  months  travelling  from  Babylon  to  Jerusalem;  (Ezra 
vii.  9 ;)  the  tidings  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  do  not  reach  Ezekiel 
in  Chaldea  for  near  five  months.  (2  Kin.  xxv.  8,  9 ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  21.) 
See  Gresswell's  Dissert.,  v.  2,  p.  138—140. 


10  i  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.   [iVIATT.  II.  17,  IS. 

its  advantages,  so  that  I  should  certainly  prefer  to  adhere 
to  the  old  order  of  the  events.  I  would  not  indeed  urge, 
as  some  do,  against  that  scheme,  that  the  harmonizing  of 
tlie  narrative  of  Matthew  with  that  of  Luke  becomes 
thus  a  good  deal  more  difficult,  inasmuch  as,  after  the 
presentation  in  the  temple,  and  before  the  dwelling  at 
[Nazareth,  there  must  have  been  not  merely  the  flight 
into  Egypt,  but  a  return  to  Bethlehem,  that  the  wise  men 
might  find  the  Holy  Family  there.  Bethlehem  was  too 
near  to  Jerusalem, — at  a  distance  but  of  seven  or  eight  of 
our  English  miles — to  make  any  difficulty  in  this.  But 
certainly  the  words,  ''When  Jesus  was  borriy  behold, 
there  came  ivise  men  from  the  east,^''  do  seem  to  imply 
the  intention  cf  the  narrator  to  place  his  birth  and  their 
coming  in  far  closer  juxtaposition  than  that  it  can  be  al- 
lowable to  intercalate  two  years,  and  all  the  events  of 
Luke  ii.  22 — 38,  between.^ 

Again,  the  difficulties  of  the  Magi's  presence  from  so 
remote  a  land  on  the  twelfth  day  after  the  Saviour's 
birth,  and  of  the  decree  of  death  including  children  un- 
der two  years  old,  are,  one  of  them  entirely  removed, 


*^  \i\s^\il<7ov  yiVvy]&ivroq,r[oiyiytvvriiJiBvov.  Cf.Heb.xi.23;  Mao-»c 
ysrvrfiitg  oL^v^r^.  Nor  need  the  nuidio^  of  St.  Matthew  make  the  slight- 
est difficulty ;  for,  however  it  may  be  quite  true  that  not  TrctiSfiv  but 
fJ^E^o?  is  the  new-born  babe,  and  is  so  used  of  Christ,  (Luke  ii.  12;  cf. 
1  Pet.  ii.2;)  and  however  the  Greek  Grammarians  may  have  recog- 
nised the  distinction,  (thus  Eustathius,  quoted  by  Wetstein:  /8gr9o?,  to 
aQTt  yeyovoi'  Traidiov,  to  rgnpofisvov  vno  tV^ij?.)  yet  tiaiSiov  is  also 
iontinually  used  for  such;  it  is  applied  to  the  Baptist,  but  eight  days 
old,  (Luke  i.  50;)  and  the  7iai8ia  of  Mat.  xix.  13  =  ^^y\<^n  of  Luke 
Aviii.  15. 


MATT.  II.  17,  18.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  105 

ihe  Other  greatly  lightened,  by  the  simple  assumption, 
which  to  me  seems  on  other  gromids  the  most  to  be  pre- 
ferred, that  the  Star  did  not  appear  simultaneously  with 
the  Saviour's  birth,  but  preceded  and  announced  it. 
Granting  that  the  Star  had  first  appeared  at  the  period, 
not  of  the  Lord's  birth,  but  of  his  Incarnation,  which  was 
the  opinion  of  Chrysostom,*  and  the  parallel  "sign  of  the 
Son  of  Man  in  heaven"  (Matt.  xxiv.  30)  does  not  ac- 
company but  precedes  his  second  advent,  w^e  shall  then 
have  abundant  time  for  the  coming  of  the  wise  men  even 
from  the  remotest  East.  And  if  we  only  suppose  that 
Herod  did  what,  if  this  view  is  correct,  so  many  inter- 
preters must  have  done,  namely,  made  the  mistake  of 
supposing  that  the  appearance  of  the  Star,  and  the  birth 
of  the  Child  fell  at  the  same  moment, — this,  too,  the  Magi, 
while  as  yet  they  had  not  been  at  Bethlehem,  may  have 
presumed, — and  add  to  the  nine  months  thus  obtained 
the  forty  days  and  somewhat  more  which  intervened  be- 
fore the  king's  decree  went  forth,  we  shall  thus  have 
nearly  a  year.  Supposing,  further,  we  were  justified  in 
making  St.  Matthew's  ^^two  years  oW  to  signify  those 
in  their  second  year,  and  the  Jews  did  count  a  year  and 
a  day,  or  in  the  case  of  animals  intended  for  sacrifice  a 
year  and  a  month,  as  though  it  were  two  years,^  then  the 
entire  difiiculty  arising  from  the  age  of  the  children  that 


'  In  Matt.,  Horn.  7,  3;  so  Theophylact. 

'  See  the  proofs  that  this  was  so  in  Greswell's  Dissert.,  v.  2,  p,  136, 
who  also  quotes  from  Aristotle,  (ns§«  tuav,  ii.  2, 11 :)  'Attq^axxh  Si 
Tit -Kipant  /u.ovo{  o  sXa<po?  aar'  'tro;,  agiafAivoi  anodnrous:  which 
means  in  its  second  year. 


106 


THE  STAR  or  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  17,  18. 


were  to  die  will  have  disappeared ;  since  Herod  would 
certainly  have  allowed  himself  the  margin  of  a  month  or 
two  to  prevent  mistakes.  And  even  if  he  set  the  age  at 
full  two  years,  meaning  that  his  banditti's  swords  should 
certainly  find  out  a  child  that  even  by  his  own  calculation 
could  only  have  been  of  one  year,  or,  as  the  ancient 
Church  supposed,  of  much  less  than  one,  there  is  nothing 
very  wonderful,  in  such  exaggerated  precautions  of  cruel- 
ty: they  are  only  in  keeping  with  the  exaggerated  sus- 
picions which  dictated  the  crime  at  all. 

After  all,  there  are  difficulties  in  every  arrangement  of 
the  succession  of  events;  though  not  so  great  as  some 
would  have  us  to  believe;  but  this  to  my  mind  seems  the 
preferable  arrangement.  If  this  be  correct,  and  if  our 
Lord's  birth  did  take  place,  as  the  best  chronologists  seem 
more  and  more  to  be  coming  to  agreement  that  it  did,  at 
the  close  of  the  year  747  u.  c,  then,  since  Herod  died 
early  in  750,''  his  abode  in  Egypt  must  have  been  of  two 


*  The  year  of  Herod's  death  is  not  without  its  difficulty,  nor  yet  is 
our  uncertainty  about  the  year  in  which  the  Saviour  of  the  world  was 
bom,  without  its  importance,  as  giving  us  a  certain  terminus  before  which 
that  must  have  happened;  for,  though  how  much  before  will  still  remain 
approximatively,  and  from  other  grounds,  to  be  concluded,  yet  it  is  some- 
thing to  have  one  of  the  limits  secure.  Now  every  thing  here  points  to 
the  spring  of  750  a.u.c.  The  most  important  help  for  the  fixing  of  this 
date  is,  as  so  often  happens  in  ancient  history,  an  eclipse;  for  such  an 
ecUpse  of  the  moon,  we  learn  from  Josephus,  Antt.,  17,  6,  4,  happened 
during  his  last  ilhiess,  and  not  very  many  days  before  his  decease.  But 
no  eclipses  of  the  moon  were  visible  in  Judaea  near  enough  to  the  one 
which  took  place  in  the  night  between  March  l2th  and  13th,  750,  to 
dispute  with  it  the  right  of  being  the  one  to  which  the  Jewish  historian 
alludes.    For  the  numismatic  argument,  which  is  complicated,  but  which 


MATT.  II.  19,20.]  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  107 

years'  duration.  Should  749  be  rather  the  year  of  the 
Nativity,  in  this  case  Egypt  will  have  afforded  its  shelter 
to  the  Holy  Family  scarcely  more  months.  Almost  as 
soon  as  they  were  there,  the  command  will  have  been 
given  to  return.  In  this  last  case  Herod  must  have  issued 
the  decree  for  the  massacre  of  the  children  from  that 
horrible  death-bed,  which  Josephus  so  fully  describes — 
which  atrocity,  if  it  seems  inconceivable  at  such  a  time, 
we  must  only  remember  that  from  the  same  death-bed, 
and  only  five  days  before  his  own  decease,  he  did  not 
shrink  from  giving  the  command,  which  was  obeyed,  for 
the  putting  of  his  own  son  to  death. 

But  now,  this  tyranny  being  overpast,  and  the  earth  rid 
of  that  monster's  presence,  ^'•behold,  an  angel  of  the  Lord 
appeareth  in  a  dream  to  Joseph  in  Egypt ^  saying,  jirise, 
and  take  the  young  Child  and  his  mother,  and  go  into 
the  land  of  Israel;  for  they  are  dead  that  sought  the 
young  Child's  life.^^  The  plural  here  does  not  require 
us  to  assume  any  other  deaths  than  that  already  men- 
tioned in  the  text,  of  Herod  himself — not  that,  for  exam- 
ple, of  some  principal  abettors  of  his,  in  counsel  or  in  act, 
in  the  crime  which  he  had  meditated,  and  who  had  died 
as  well  as  he.'     The  use  of  such  a  plural  is  far  too  com- 


issues  in  exactly  the  same  results,  see  Miinter's  Der  Stem  Der  Weisen, 
pp.  76 — 81.  The  respect  owing  to  so  profound  and  independent  an  in- 
vestigator of  the  ancient  chronology  as  Mr.  Greswell,  should  hinder  one 
from  passing  unnoticed  the  fact  that  he  has  called  in  question  this  result, 
himself  placing  the  death  of  Herod  a  year  later,  that  is,  in  751  a.u.c. 
(Dbsert.,  v.  1,  p.  272  seq.) 

*  Thus  Keppler  suggests  Antipater,  who,  having  prompted  his  father 
to  the  putting  of  his  two  brothers  to  death,  as  his  possible  rivals 


1  08  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II,  1 9,  20. 

moil  to  make  any  difficulty  here,  or  any  such  supposition 
needful.  The  immediate  motive  to  the  plural  here  was, 
probably,  an  intention  of  thus  bringing  this  passage  of 
our  Lord's  life  into  closer  and  more  observable  relation 
with  the  parallel  circumstances  in  the  life  of  Moses ;  in 
the  narration  of  which  these  very  words  occur:  "All  the 
men  are  dead  that  sought  thy  life."  (Exod.  iv.  19.^) 
There,  in  the  interval  of  forty  years  which  had  elapsed 
since  Moses  had  fled  from  Egypt,  we  can  quite  under- 
stand how  all  had  died  who  had  nourished  purposes  of  re- 
venge against  him.  Here  it  is  litde  likely  that  any  other 
besides  Herod  himself  is  intended. 

'^^nd  he  arose  and  took  the  young  Child  and  his 
mother  and  came  into  the  land  of  Israel,     But  when 


to  the  throne,  so  might  have  instigated  out  of  a  like  motive  the  present 
massacre,  but  had  himself  perished  by  his  father's  command. 

*  Spanlieim  (Dub.  Evang.,  85,  3:)  Evidens  est  veris  Evangelistas 
[Angeli?]  allusum  ad  revocationem  Mosis  in  Egyptum,  qui  infanticidio 
Bubductus,  infanticida  sublato,  iisdem  pcene  verbis  revocatus  legitur: 
aviX6s  £ig  AiyvTiTov  Te6vrjy.a(ri  ya^  Trams  oi  uf^TOwvTif  a-ov  Ttjv  xpv^rjv. 
(Exod.  iv.  19.)  Hinc  etiam  collatio  ilia  /ra/)a\x?;xo?  aliquomodo  fir- 
matur  et  illustratur  quam  instituimus  (in  expositione  verborum  Ex 
^gypto  evocavi  filium  meum)  inter  populum  Israeliticum  et  Christum 
primogenitum  Dei,  inter  utri usque  conditionem,  et  beneficium  subsequu- 
tum.  Utiquesanenegari  nequit  liberatorem  typicum  et  verum  iisdem  verbis 
revocatum,  et  suavem  dari  comparationem  inter  Christum  et  Mosem, 
uterque  infanticidio  subductus,  uterque  revocatus,  uterque  Dei  voce  re- 
vocatus, uterque  po>'t  obitum  tyrannorum,  uterque  Dux  populi  Dei  con- 
stitutus.  And  Grotius:  Non  temere  est  quod  ipsa  verba  usurpantur 
quae  exstant,  Exod.  iv.  19 :  id  enim  solet  in  sacris  litteris  rei  gestae  simi- 
litudinem  dcclarare. 


MATT.  II.  21.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  109 

he  heard  that  Archelaus  did  reign  in  Judsea  in  the  room 
of  his  father  Herod,  he  was  afraid  to  go  thither,'"  It 
may  at  first  sight  seem  strange  that  Joseph  should  not 
have  certainly  concluded  that,  if  the  father  was  dead,  the 
son  would  succeed  to  his  throne,  that  he  should  not  have 
calculated  on  this  from  the  first,  instead  of  suffering  a 
later  discovery  of  it  to  compel  him  altogether  to  alter  his 
plans.  But,  in  fact,  this  unexpected  discovery  of  his, 
that  Archelaus  reigned  in  Judaea,  is  exactly  that  which, 
when  we  know  accurately  the  circumstances  of  his  acces- 
sion to  his  father's  throne,  we  should  have  looked  for. 
It  was  not  merely  that  there  were  so  many  vicissitudes 
in  the  bloody  house  of  the  Idumaean  that  Joseph  might 
easily  have  anticipated  some  other  arrangement,  but 
Josephus  expressly  tells  us  that  Herod  had  intended  to 
leave  the  kingdom  to  his  son,  Herod  Antipas,  but  on  his 
death-bed  altered  the  entire  disposition  of  his  dominions, 
and,  bequeathing  to  him  only  the  tetrarchy  of  Galilee  and 
Peraea,  left  the  kingdom  to  Archelaus.'  How  exactly, 
then,  does  the  course  which  Joseph  pursues  fall  in  with 
the  historic  circumstances  of  the  time  !  He  drew  nigh 
to  Judaea,  taking  for  granted  that  it  would  be  as  it  had 
been  settled,  and  as  probably  that  it  was  notorious  to  all; 
namely,  that  Antipas,  a  weak  and  unworthy  prince,  but 
one  to  whom  no  such  atrocities  were  imputed  as  to  his 
father  and  brother,  sat  on  his  father's  throne ;  and  then, 
on  the  borders  of  the  land,  he  learned  to  his  dismay,  that 
this  arrangement  had  been  reversed,  that  Archelaus,  the 
genuine  son  of  his  father,  the  inheritor  of  all  his  cruelty, 

'  Antt.,  17,  8,  L 


110  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  [mATT.  II.  22. 

had  succeeded  to  his  throne,  and  ruled  in  the  land  where 
he  proposed  to  dwell. 

Archelaus  was  a  son  of  Herod,  by  a  Samaritan  woman, 
Malthace  by  name;  and  was  privately  brought  up,  with 
his  whole  brother  Antipas,  at  Rome.^  He  did  not"re^g•ri," 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word — that  is,  as  king;  for 
although  Herod  bequeathed  to  him  the  title  of  royalty, 
and  he  was  saluted  king  by  the  army,^  yet  when  he  went 
to  Rome,  that  the  title  might  be  confirmed  by  Augustus, 
an  embassage  of  the  Jews  followed  him  there,  protesting 
against  his  domination,  on  the  score  of  his  father's  in- 
tolerable cruelty  and  his  own ;  for  they  said  that,  almost 
immediately  on  his  accession,  and  as  if  he  feared  that  he 
should  not  be  recognised  as  the  genuine  son  of  his  father, 
he  had  inaugurated  his  reign  by  the  massacre,  on  no  suf- 
ficient provocation,  of  three  thousand  Jewish  citizens.^ 
They  prevailed  so  far,  that  Augustus  would  for  the  pre- 
sent only  allow  him  the  tide  of  ethnarch,  with  the  promise 
that  the  higher  dignity  should  be  his,  in  case  he  so  con- 
ducted himself  as  to  deserve  it.^  Continuing  in  his  cruel 
and  tyrannous  courses,  he  again  provoked  the  Jews  to 
carry  accusations  against  him  to  Rome ;  and  this  time 
with  more  entire  success;  for  the  emperor  removed  him 
altogether  from  his  rule,  after  he  had  abused  it  for  ten 

'  Josephus,  Antt.,  1.  17,  c.  1,  §  3;  B.  J.,  1.  1,  c.  28,  §  4. 

=»  B.  J.,  1.  ],c.  33,  §§8,9. 

'  Their  words  are  striking  in  their  relation  to  the  passage  before  us : 
Tov  (Tf,  (iiOTrip  ayaviua-a.vra,  /jctj  vofiog  viog  do^siiv  'HqooSov,  n^ooi/jLiAa- 
uardAi  T!;v  ^ctaiXiiAv  T^to-^txicov  noKnotv  <povw.  Joseph  felt  that  he 
was  this  genuine  son  of  his  father. 

'  B.  3.,  I  2,  c.  1,  §  §  2,  3;  and  c.  C,  §  §  2,  3. 


MATT.  II.  22, 23.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  1  1  1 

years,  and  banished  him  to  Vienne  in  Gaul,  where  he 
died.i 

Again  Joseph  is  instructed  what  he  shall  do ;  "  being 
warned  of  God  in  a  dream,  he  turned  aside  into  the 
parts  of  Galilee,''^ — probably  little  knowing  that  he  was 
herein  preparing  a  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy :  "  The 
people  that  walk  in  darkness  have  seen  a  great  light;  they 
that  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  upon  them 
hath  the  light  shined."  (Isai.  ix.  2 ;  cf.  Matt,  iv,  15,  16.) 
^'And  he  came  and  dwelt  in  a  city  called  Nazareth,  that 
it  might  he  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophets. 
He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene^  That  explanation  of 
these  words  is  perhaps  encumbered  with  the  fewest  diffi- 
culties, which  starts  with  calling  attention  to  the  plural, 
*'  by  the  prophets,''^  which  the  Evangelist  here  uses — a 
form  of  citation  from  the  Old  Testament,  which  only  ap- 
pears once  elsewhere;  (Mark  i.  2;)  and  then  evidently 
because  the  sacred  writer  is  making  allusion  to  passages 
from  more  prophets  than  one — namely,  to  Mai.  iii.  1. 
and  Isai.  xl.  1.  Here,  in  like  manner,  it  has  been  said, 
by  the  use  of  the  plural,  " /Ae  prophets,''^  and  not  '■'the 
prophet,''^  St.  Matthew  would  indicate  that  we  have  a 
collective  fulfilment  of  prophecy — a  fulfilment  of  that 
which  was  spoken,  not  by  one  prophet,  but  by  many.2 
As,  however,  it  is  plain  that  our  Lord's  bringing  up  at 


^  B.J.,1.2,c.7,  §  3. 

*  Jerome:  Si  fixum  de  Scripturis  posuisset  exemplum,  nunquam 
diceret,  quod  dictum  est  -per  prophetas :  sed  simpliciter,  quod  dictum 
est  per  prophetam ;  nunc  autem  pluraliter  prophetas  vocans,  ostendit  se 
non  verba  de  Scripturis  sumsisse,  sed  sensvm. 


1 12  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  II.  23. 

Nazareth,  with  the  scornful  appellation  of  "the  Naza- 
rene,"  which  he  consequently  bore,'  is  nowhere  distinct- 
ly and  in  as  many  words  foretold  in  the  prophe.ts,  we 
must  look  a  little  deeper,  and  see  if  there  be  not  an  un- 
derlying vein  of  prophecy — prophecies,  not  one,  but 
many,  which  at  their  inmost  centre  and  core  were  ful- 
filled when  this  title  of  contempt  was  given  Him.  These 
prophecies  I  believe  no  other  than  all  those  which  fore- 
told his  low  estate,  the  contempt  and  scorn  which  should 
be  his  portion  from  the  ungodly  world;  such,  for  example, 
as  Isai.  xlix.  7;  liii.  3;  Ps.  xxii. :  all  which  scorn  and 
contempt  were  incorporated  and  gathered  up  in  this  nick- 
name, for  such  originally  it  was,  of  "the  Nazarene." 
For  what  did  that  name  imply,  but  that  he  drew  his  origin 
from  the  most  despised  city  (John  i.  46)  of  the  most 
despised  province  in  the  land;  (John  vii.  52;)  from  a 
city  out  of  which  even  a  Nathanael  could  expect  no  good 
thing;  from  a  province  out  of  which  the  haughty  schools 
of  Jerusalem  afErmed,  though  indeed  falsely ,2  (John  vii. 
52,)  that  no  prophet  had  come;  from  which,  therefore,  it 
was  little  likely  that  the  greatest  Prophet  of  all  should 
come. 

It  is  true  that  even  Bethlehem,  the  Lord's  true  birth- 
place, was,  as  we  have  seen,  small  and  outwardly  of  little 
account — ^^  least  among  the  princes  of  Judah;  but  then 


'  For  proof  of  the  manner  in  which  this  name  has  survived,  among 
the  Jews,  as  a  name  of  scorn  applied  to  the  Saviour,  see  Eisenmenger's 
Entdeckt.  Judenthum,  v.  1,  pp.  64,  254,  631. 

=  Gath-hepher,  the  birth-place  of  Jonah,  (2  Kin.  xiv.  25,)  and  El- 
kosch,  of  JNahum,  were  both  in  Galilee;  and  a  greater  than  either, 
Elijah,  was  of  Thislx^,  which  pertained  lo  the  same  region.  (Toh.  i.  2.) 


MATT.  II.  23.]    THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  113 

how  full  of  glorious  recollections ;  with  a  history  entwined 
with  that  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  kings;  where 
Rachel,  the  favourite  wife  of  Jacob,  had  died,  and  was 
buried  ;  (Gen.  xxxv.  19  ;)  where  Ruth  had  been  espoused 
to  him  by  whom  she  became  the  ancestress  of  the  line 
of  Judah's  kings;  (Ruth  iv.  18 — 22;)  and  more  yet  than 
this,  the  city  of  David  "the  king;"  and  more  than  this 
all,  the  city  which  long  ago  had  been  designated  as  the 
birth-place  of  Him  who,  being  David's  son,  was  yet  also 
David's  Lord. 

What  a  contrast  to  all  this  did  Nazareth  present ;  not 
once  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament ;  not  once  men- 
tioned, as  we  may  note  in  passing,  by  the  great  Jewish 
antiquarian  and  historian,  Josephus;  probably  not  having 
come  into  existence  till  after  the  return  from  the  captivity; 
its  very  name  indicating,  as  some  suppose,  its  littleness;^ 
without  a  single  venerable  tradition,  without  one  associa- 
tion of  dignity ;  a  place  so  little  befitting  the  Lord  of 
Glory  in  their  eyes  who  had  only  an  eye  for  outward 
glory,  that  "of  Nazareth,"  or  "Nazarene,"  attached  to 
the  Lord's  name,  seemed  to  them  who  looked  no  deeper 
than  the  surface,  at  once  to  refute  his  claims  of  the  Mes- 
siahship,  and  to  justify  their  rejection  of  Him  as  such; 
for,  as  some  of  these  objectors  urged:  "Hath  not  the 
Scripture  said  that  Christ  cometh  from  the  seed  of  David, 
and  out  of  the  town  of  Bethlehem,  where  David  was  ?" 
(John  vii.  42.) 

In  estimating  the  motives  which  induced  St.  Matthew 

'  n^ij  a  little  shoot,  as  contrasted  with  a  stately  tree.  (See  Heng- 
stenberg,  Christologie,  v.  2,  p.  4.) 


114  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.    [mATT.  11.23. 

to  urge  this  point,  we  must  not  leave  out  of  sight  an  in- 
tention which,  it  is  evident,  his  Gospel,  and  especially 
these  first  two  chapters  of  it,  had — namely,  to  remove 
every  occasion  of  stumbling  out  of  the  way  of  Jewish 
readers,  or  of  converts  from  the  circumcision  recently 
made.  All  the  events  and  circumstances  of  the  Lord's 
life,  that  might  have  perplexed  or  offended  these,  as  being 
contrary  to  their  expectations,  he  so  treats  of,  that  they 
shall  now  see  in  them  not  arguments  against  his  claims 
to  be  the  Christ,  but  for  it.  So  is  it  here.  Not,  he  would 
imply,  without  an  express  command  of  God,  did  it  come 
to  pass  that  this  Child  was  brought  up  at  Nazareth ;  in 
nurture  there,  and  in  the  slight  which  accrued  to  Him 
from  this,  was  only  fulfilled  that  which  their  own  prophets 
had  long  since  foretold.  These  had  spoken  of  Messiah 
as  one  whose  outward  circumstances  should  be  inglorious, 
in  whom  his  brethren  should  see  no  external  beauty  or 
dignity  that  they  should  desire  Him:  and  thus,  when 
their  contempt  gathered  itself  up  in  the  one  contemptuous 
epithet,  "  the  Nazarene,"  an  epithet  which  this  his  resi- 
dence in  Nazareth  suggested  and  supplied,  they  did  but 
fulfil  in  regard  to  Jesus,  the  son  of  Mary,  that  which  long 
since  had  been  declared  should  find  its  fulfilment  in  Him 
who  was  indeed  the  Christ. 

A  word  or  two  may  be  permitted  in  conclusion — which 
I  am  the  more  inclined  to  add,  as  I  cannot  doubt  that, 
whenever  in  our  country  the  assault  on  those  divine  facts 
whereon  our  faith  is  founded,  and  on  the  sacred  record 
which  contains  them,  begins,  (if  it  has  not  begun  already,) 
the  history  of  the  Infancy  will  be  one  of  the  earliest  and 


MATT.  II.  23.]     THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.  115 

chiefest  points  of  attack.  To  enter  into  a  defence 
of,  or  apology  for,  this  portion  of  sacred  history  is 
not,  and  has  not  been,  except  incidentally,  my  inten- 
tion ;  for  I  have  written  for  them  who  believe,  and  not 
for  thera  who  do  not.  Yet  this  much  it  may  be 
permitted  to  observe.  For  as  many,  indeed,  as  deny 
that  the  name  of  this  Child,  of  whom  St.  Matthew  is 
telling,  was  "Wonderful,"  "the  Mighty  God,"  (Isai.  ix. 
6,)  it  is  nothing  strange,  but  only  consistent,  that  they 
should  be  perplexed  and  offended  with  all  about  his  birth, 
which  marks  Him  out  as  so  different  from  the  other 
children  of  men ;  that  they  should  seek  to  explain  away 
the  ideal  aspect  in  which  all  of  the  actual  presents  itself 
here;  to  dissipate,  if  they  may,  the  nimbus  of  glory  which 
encircles  the  Saviour's  head,  even  while  He  is  yet  this 
"  infant  of  days."  It  is  nothing  strange  that  they  should 
endeavour  to  get  rid  of  the  witness  which  is  borne  to 
Him,  even  in  his  cradle,  alike  by  heaven,  by  earth,  and 
by  hell — by  Star  and  by  angels  from  heaven,  by  wise 
men  and  simple,  seers  and  shepherds,  on  earth, — and  as 
by  their  reverence  and  love,  so  not  less  by  the  instinctive 
hatred  of  the  wicked  king,  wherein  all  hell  bears  witness 
that  it,  too,  knows  its  destroyer  to  be  at  hand. 

Such  gainsaying  must  naturally  be  expected.  But  for 
as  many  as  devoutly  receive  the  central  fact,  the  wonder 
of  wonders,  namely  that  this  Child  was  Immanuel,  was 
"God  with  us" — they  will  count  that  this  rather  would 
have  been  strange,  this  inexplicable,  if  heaven  liad  broken 
forth  upon  earth,  and  had  yet  given  no  tokens  nor  signs 
that  it  was  heaven  and  not  earth  which  now  was  blos- 
soming and  budding,  God  and  not  merely  man  that  was 


116  THE  STAR  OF  THE  WISE  MEN.     [mATT.  11.23. 

being  born.     This,  indeed,  would  have  perplexed  them^ 
if  the  newest  and  most  unwonted  of  all  should  yet  have 
had  nothing  new,  nothing  unwonted  about  it,  nothing 
to  distinguish  it  from  the  commonest  and  the  most  out- 
worn of  our  old  and  work-day   world;   that  the  most 
wonderful  should  have  appeared,  and  yet,  notwithstand- 
ing, should  have  grouped  round  it  no  choir  of  attendant 
wonders.     They,  at  least,  will  not  be  of  the  number  of 
those  who  will  allow  nature  to  have  its  poetry  and  its 
prophecy,  but  not  grace,  even  the  world  to  have  its  har- 
monies, heard  from  time  to  time  above  its  harsher  dis- 
cords, but  not  the  Church  and  kingdom  of  heaven ;  who 
are  content  that  beauty  should  stand  in  the  service  of 
fiction,  but  not  of  truth;  who  rather,  on  the  instant  that 
they  meet  it  in  this  service,  count  it  suspicious,  as  though 
some  one  must  have  feigned  it  there,  as  though  of  itself 
it  never  could  have  stood  in  that  service,  nor  done  actual 
homage  to  Him,  from  whom  yet  all  beauty  descends,  the 
weak  shadows  and  reflexes  of  whose  transcendent  glory 
is  all  of  glorious  which  we  here  behold. 

No  words  of  my  own  will  so  fitly  express  the  tone  in 
which  I  would  fain  conclude  this  essay  as  those  which 
the  Prayer  Book  supplies: — "  O  God,  who  by  the  lead- 
ing of  a  Star  did  manifest  thy  only-begotten  Son  to  the 
Gentiles;  Mercifully  grant,  that  we,  which  know  thee 
now  by  faith,  may  after  this  life  have  the  fruition  of  thy 
glorious  Godhead,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 


THE  END. 


Date  Due 

9  24  %^' 

1 

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